Skip to main content

Chat AI

Set up your Chat AI agent to answer customer inquires through a chat widget. The AI agent gives information on store info, recent orders, inventory, and more.

Every shopper gets an answer.

Chat AI answers store, menu, and product questions on your website, and once it has verified the customer, it checks their loyalty balance, rewards, and recent orders.

Chat AI runs on the same knowledge and the same tools as Voice AI through Shared Memory, so answers stay consistent online and by phone. Teach it once in one place and both agents know it. AIQ runs its own customer support on this product.

For an overview of the full suite, see Meet Astro.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have:

Required Permissions:

Chat AI can be accessed by team members with the following permissions:

  • Owner

How to set up your Chat Agent

  1. Go to Astro AI → On-site AI → Chat AI

  2. Customize your settings. We’ll go over all of them below

    1. Note: You can also customize the look and placement of the widget on the Design page

  3. Once finished, turn on the Enable Chat AI toggle at the top of the page

  4. If you haven't already, install AIQ's Pixel to display the chat widget on your site. We cover the installation process below.

Chat Screen Customization

Customize the name, header, and starter questions a customer sees in the chat widget. These are optional, leave blank to use the defaults.

  • Assistant name: Allows you to customize the name that show's above the agent's messages in the chat widget

  • Input placeholder: The placeholder text customers will see chat's input field

  • Empty state: The header shown on the widget's starting screen above the starter questions

  • Starter questions: Shown on the widget's starting screen. The widget picks three at random to display to customers, which they can then use to quickly pre-fill questions to kickoff a chat

    • AIQ's default starter questions rotate between store-related questions, such as: What are your most popular items?, Where is the nearest location?, What are your store hours?, How many loyalty points do I have?, What is the last thing I purchased?, etc.

Knowledge Base

Your agent’s knowledge base is made up of customizable FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets. These are best used for information that lives outside your store data, things a built-in tool wouldn’t know to look up on its own.

Best practices: avoid duplicating what's already automated

If a topic is already covered by a built-in feature (like hours, address, or inventory), you don't need to, and shouldn't, create a matching FAQ, Behavior, or Knowledge bucket for it. Doing so creates two sources of truth for the same question, which can lead to inconsistent or outdated answers if you forget to update the knowledge base later. Let the built-in tool handle it, that's what it's there for.

Quick check before adding a FAQ, Behavior, or Knowledge bucket: Ask "Is this already something the agent can look up live?" If yes, skip it. If no, it's a great candidate for adding to the knowledge base.

Also avoid duplicating information across FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets. Have one source of truth for a piece of information. So for example, avoid adding a FAQ and a Knowledge bucket about your loyalty program benefits.

FAQs

Question-and-answer pairs the agent can reference when a caller asks something not covered by the built-in tools.

How to add a FAQ

  1. Go to Astro AI→ On-site AI → Chat AI

  2. In the FAQ section, click +Add

  3. Add your question and answer

  4. Add keywords

    1. These are variations in how callers may ask the same question. Either add keywords manually or click +Generate keywords to have Astro AI generate some for you

  5. Click Save in the drawer

  6. Make sure to click Save on the main agent settings page as well

Example FAQs

  • “Do you have a refer-a-friend program?”

  • “How does the loyalty program work?” / “How many points do I earn per dollar spent?”

  • “What do I do about defective products?”

  • “What’s your return policy?”

Behaviors

Behaviors are conditional instructions that tell the agent how to behave when specific conditions are met.

How to add a Behavior

  1. Go to Astro AI→ On-site AI → Chat AI

  2. In the Behavior section, click +Add

  3. Add your conditions and responses

  4. Click Save in the drawer

  5. Make sure to click Save on the main agent settings page as well

Example Behaviors

  • If the customer is not a loyalty member and asks a question about member benefits, then mention they should consider joining the loyalty program once, briefly, without being pushy

  • If the customer says they enjoyed the last pop-up event, then tell them to follow our Instagram at [username] to stay up-to-date on future events

  • If the customer says the only have a credit card, then tell them we only accept cash and debit card

Knowledge Buckets

Knowledge buckets allow you to upload files and links that agents call pull information from.

How to create a Knowledge Bucket

  1. Go to Astro AI→ On-site AI → Chat AI

  2. In the Knowledge bucket section, click +Create bucket

  3. Add your Name

  4. Add an optional Description

  5. Select a color and icon of your choosing

  6. Add relevant files and links

  7. Click Save in the drawer

  8. Make sure to click Save on the main agent settings page as well

Syncing Knowledge Buckets

Knowledge buckets will sync information automatically, but if you feel that the agent is missing content, then you can click Sync now to force it to run a sync.

Knowledge bases: Shared Memory defaults vs Agent-level

There can be two types of FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets displayed in your agent settings:

  1. Those pulling from Shared Memory. These are shared across all agents

    1. These have a Shared Memory • Default tag, which helps differentiate them from agent-specific ones

    2. If you don’t want your agent to use a Shared Memory default, disable the Status toggle

      1. The table is filtered to the Enabled status on default, which shows you only the Shared Memory defaults that your agent is actively using

    3. Editing a Shared Memory FAQ or Behavior at the agent-level:

      1. Any changes at the agent-level will create an override copy that only applies to the specific agent you are editing. The Shared Memory default will disable and a new version will be created with your edits

      2. Any changes to a Shared Memory FAQ or Behavior in your agent-level settings will not push back to the Shared Memory page

    4. You cannot edit or create an override copy of Shared Memory Knowledge buckets. Instead, disable the Shared Memory default, and create a new Knowledge bucket in your agent's settings

  2. FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets created specifically for this agent

    1. These do not have a tag

    2. Agent-specific ones will always be enabled (the Status toggle is locked), unless you Delete it to prevent the agent from using it on future calls

    3. FAQs and Behaviors per location

      1. On default, Currently Editing will show Default Preset (Shared) to indicate that these apply to all locations

      2. Select a location from the Currently Editing dropdown if you want to create any per location

Tools

  • Order Lookup: allows the agent to look up the customer’s past orders (up to 30 days) and order statuses. The agent will verify the customer’s identity first

  • Inventory Summary: allows the agent to give a category-level summary of the stock available at your store

    • Note: Inventory pulls directly from your connected POS

  • Inventory Search: allows the agent to give more specific product-level details (search by product name, product-level stock)

    • Note: Inventory pulls directly from your connected POS

  • Store Lookup: allows the agent to give your store’s phone number, address, and hours of operation. It can also confirm whether the store is open or closed at the time of the chat

    • Note: Make sure to add your location’s phone number and address in Retail Location settings.

    • Note: Hours pulls from Google business profile based on the address you have listed in Retail Location settings

      • To use custom hours, enable "Use custom hours", select your store, then edit store hours.

  • Customer Rewards: allows the agent to review a customer’s loyalty point balance and available rewards/discounts. It verifies the customer’s identity first

  • Customer Insights: allows the agent to share a customer’s purchase history patterns, favorite brands, and shopping trends. It verifies the customer’s identity first

  • Loyalty Signup: allows the agent to enroll customers into your loyalty program when they express interest in signing up

    • When enabled, select which form you’d like the agent to use during signups

    • Note: Signature cannot be collected via the chat agent. Make sure the form you select has Signature marked as optional

  • FAQ Search: allows the agent to look up information provided in the knowledge base settings (FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets)

  • Weather Lookup: allows the agent to give the weather at store locations

How to install your Chat Agent on your website

To install your AI Chat agent, you'll need to add the pixel to your site:

  1. Navigate to Settings → API & Tracking and copy the code under Tracking Pixel Code

  2. You will then need to add the pixel to your website. See: Pixel Tracking for more information on how to do this

What the agent can’t do

We covered what the agent is set up to do, but it’s also important to discuss what the agent can’t do for your customers.

The agent can’t:

  • Answer any questions outside the scope of our built-in tools or your custom knowledge base

  • Troubleshoot technical issues (e.g. errors while submitting online orders, resetting passwords, etc.)

  • Provide or change personal information (e.g. name, phone number, address, or billing information. Also general loyalty member info such as opt-in statuses, loyalty expiration, etc.)

  • Place orders. This includes online or in-store orders; also can’t place holds or reserve items

  • Redeem rewards/discounts

  • Process returns or issue refunds

  • Provide personal or order information to guests. Customers must be verified (have an existing account).

  • Send information via text or email (e.g. the customer asks the agent to send the store’s information via text or email. The agent will only ever send verification codes to verify a customer’s identity)

  • Review previous chat logs or notes. The agent has no memory of a customer’s previous conversations

  • Speak languages other than English. The agent is limited to English-only for this release

  • Provide advice regarding any personal matters

FAQ's

I have both Chat AI and Terpli AI, how will this affect my chat widget?

When you have both Chat AI and Terpli AI enabled, the customer will be prompted to choose which path they want to go down. "Get Recommendations" will take you down the Terpli recommendation engine. "Talk with chat" will take you down the Chat AI path where users can use text prompts to get answers.

Need Help?

If you need assistance, reach out to AIQ Support anytime via chat widget within your AIQ Dashboard.

Related Articles
Did this answer your question?