The purpose of this research is to develop chatbots as virtual clients (VCs) for empathy training, and to explore the feasibility assessment of using chatbots to assist in empathy training for students in counseling and guidance-related departments. The virtual clients are developed and tested based on chatbots using domain knowledge of empathy training. Chatbots are powered by natural language processing engines and trained by corpora of dialogues involving various emotions. As such, using chatbots serving as VCs allows the interlocutor to practice empathy skills with diversity and richness. After chatbots are successfully transformed into VCs, 60 volunteers from the Department of Guidance and Counseling are recruited to experience the interaction with VCs, followed by immediately conducting user experience surveys to understand users’ subjective feelings and thoughts for evaluating the ease of use and effectiveness of VC. Chatbots are successfully transformed into VCs by implementing corpora of emotions into “custom brain” of chatbots. The content of corpora includes client scenarios that are consistent with the goals of empathy training for undergraduates in guidance and counseling or psychotherapy. Test results show that the average score from the User Experience Questionnaire of the testers exceeds level 5 (1-7), which is a state of satisfaction. In terms of System Usability Scale, the average score is 4 (1-5), indicating agreement with the system’s usability. Along with qualitative feedback, testers agreed on the usability of the chatbot system, stating that most people can quickly learn to use the system, interact with the virtual client (VC) without stress, feel relaxed, and want to continue the conversation. They believe that VC is suitable for practicing empathy skills, reducing anxiety during practice, and improving empathy response skills through such practice. From the observation of the testers during the test process, the testers showed curious and interested eyes when they saw the VC, and they enjoyed practicing empathy with the VC. This research successfully transformed the chatbot into a VC, which can be used as an assistive training tool for empathy practice. In addition to increasing practice hours, willingness, and opportunities for empathy training, using VCs allows prospective counselors to avoid ethical problems and pressure caused by directly facing the real-life client in the learning stage of developing counseling skills. Furthermore, utilizing VCs as a training auxiliary tool will help solve the teaching dilemma of insufficient case sources and enable the continuation of counselor education in situations such as future recurrences of epidemics similar to the COVID-19 pandemic.