We are interested in developing a chatbot which renders images within the chat window.
Hey @John_Ferguson! Welcome to the community and thanks for reaching out. 
As long as you have the image URL, it actually is possible to embed it in the chat component with chatComponent.sendMessage and the correct markdown syntax.
This isn't super intuitive, but lets you build some really cool stuff! Something similar was outlined here. Depending on your particular use case, I might be able to provide some more specific tips and tricks. Let me know if you have any follow up questions. 