How to set up your AI Studio account
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How to use AI Studio
7 min read
Updated on 1st August 2023
Whether you’ve just signed up or are still researching AI assistants, here’s our no nonsense guide to getting yours live. Creating an AI assistant using AI Studio takes less than 10 minutes.
- You get the most advanced conversational AI and natural language chatbot using NLP
- Link it up with any business system you already use to automate even the most complex enquiries
- As your human in the loop, trust our team to make sure it’s constantly evolving
Dive into our tutorial below or create your AI assistant now.
Jump to section
How to set up your AI Studio account
How to set up your AI assistant
How to make the most of your 30 free days
How to make the most of training suggestions
How to craft responses
How to change the look and feel of your AI assistant
How to change your default messages
How to add a new flow (if needed)
How to test your AI assistant
How to put your AI assistant live
How to add live chat
How to budget for an AI assistant
How to make your first payment
How to report progress using your dashboard
How to manage growth
How to ask for help
How to set up your AI assistant
It’s so easy to launch an AI assistant on our platform because it uses content you’ve already produced:
- Copy your website URL and paste it into the box.
- Click Create.
Your first set of question-and-answer sequences are automatically created by pulling in information directly from your website ― we call them flows. They store the answers your AI assistant will use to answer customer questions.
Our platform creates your AI assistant in around 10 minutes. You’ll then land on your Flows page where you’ll see a list of all the new flows that have been automatically created and published for you.
You can edit these or unpublish flows altogether if you don’t want to use them ― you choose what goes live. You’re in complete control.
(If you don’t have a website, you can Skip this part and go to Add your first flow, then follow the steps at how to add a new flow to add yours manually.)
Top tip: You only need to create around 20 flows to launch your AI assistant because it’s more sophisticated than a traditional chatbot and simply learns on the job.
Now you know how easy it is to get started, let’s talk about why it’s important to launch your AI assistant as soon as possible, so you get the most out of your 30 free days.
How to make the most of your 30 free days
As soon as your account is active, create your AI assistant and set it live straight away, so you can get 30 full days of conversation with real customers to prove its value. Everyone gets 30 days free, regardless of whether your AI assistant speaks to 1 or 1,000 customers a day.
Your AI assistant won’t need hours and hours of training. As soon as it’s live, it starts to inform which new flows you should add in line with real customers questions. These are questions real customers have already asked, which often differ to the questions you think they’ll ask ― the first month can be surprising!
Top tip: Launch your AI assistant straight away and you’ll have 30 full days of data to learn from.
Training your AI assistant to answer more questions as time goes on is a doddle. More on that, next.
How to make the most of training suggestions
When your AI assistant goes live we start to review the conversations it has with your customers. If your AI assistant is confident a customer question should have an automated answer but doesn’t yet have have one, our expert team will pick that up and it’ll be automatically suggested as a worthwhile update.
As your essential human in the loop, our team of language experts, psychologists, designers and writers are there to keep your AI assistant focussed on the right training. As well as filtering out unnecessary questions that will muddy its learning and dilute your great results, they make sure your AI assistant only sends out relevant, accurate responses to your customers while also staying up to date with their ever-evolving needs.
Through our conversation review service, our experienced team will suggest you train your AI assistant to answer important questions that don’t yet have a flow and, with the click of a button, you can accept or reject their suggestions.
You’ll get a notification whenever there’s a new training suggestion and nothing goes live without your say so.
Top tip: You can rest assured your customer data is protected since all PII (personal identification information) is automatically removed from conversations before they enter our advanced system.
Next, we’ll show you how easy it is to create your responses using text, images, links and more.
How to craft responses
Now you’ve logged in and have your first flows up and running, you’ll be able to edit the responses your AI assistant will give to questions if you want to.
Responses should be as short and succinct as possible, so your AI assistant gets straight to the point.
Think about the way the information is presented too:
- Would an image or video make the response clearer?
- Is it helpful to add a link or button?
You’ve plenty of design options to make your responses as helpful as they can be:
Mostly, you’ll use text bubbles.
You can add links (with or without images).
Use buttons for your CTAs.
Offer multiple choice where it’s needed
If the answer is ‘it depends’, use multiple choice to get your customer to the right answer.
1. Add your clarifying question.
2. Add the appropriate answer for each option or group of options.
To check you’re happy with how your flow looks and sounds, use the device preview on the right-hand side, which updates every time you make a change.
When you’re ready, hit Publish to update your flow and your AI assistant can start using it in conversation with your customers as soon as it’s live.
Hint! Any flows in your list that are unpublished show with a grey tab and go green once published.
Top tip: Remember, your AI assistant learns on the job as new, real customer enquiries come in ― resist the urge to load it up with more and more new flows and wait for our suggestions instead.
Next, you can really start to make your AI assistant your own.
How to change the look and feel of your AI assistant
This is the fun part where you style your AI assistant and give it an identity. Go to the Style tab to make changes any time.
Hint! If you haven’t done this kind of thing before and want help to get it right for your business, read our guide on how to name your AI assistant for inspiration.
First, choose an avatar for your AI assistant. If you don’t have one in mind, use your logo, or design one with Canva or a generative AI tool like Midjourney.
Give your AI assistant a name (in case you missed it, here’s some help with naming a chatbot for business).
You can add your AI assistant to any website unless you choose to restrict it.
If you only want your AI assistant to appear on your main website (there’s often a second url for testing, too), you can do that by adding the URL to the Web section. This means your AI assistant is then locked down, so it will only work on the sites you want it to appear on.
Change the colours of the chat window and bubbles.
On the right-hand side, you’ll see the device preview update every time you make a change, so you can be sure you’re happy with it.
Top tip: Avoid using “bot” in your AI assistant name, since it can have negative connotations.
Once this step is complete, you can start to look at what your AI assistant says.
How to change your default messages
You’ll find a number of default messages under the Universal content tab, but there are two key messages every AI assistant needs to have:
- A welcome message.
- A fallback message.
Your AI assistant sends a welcome message for every new interaction with your AI assistant:
Alongside your welcome message, your AI assistant will automatically pull in a few questions your customers can simply click on to go straight to the answer. These will be different every time the AI assistant starts a new conversation.
A fallback message is used when your AI assistant can’t answer a question and needs clarification.
Other default messages are for use with our free live chat service if you choose to use it (more on that later) and to ask customers for feedback.
You can update the text for any of your default messages any time just by clicking the arrow to open up the edit box.
Top tip: Add a waving hand emoji to your welcome message to add a little zing! 👋
The final step pre-launch is to test how it’s all working…
How to add a new flow (if needed)
You’ll be able to rely on our expert suggestions to train your AI assistant by adding new flows, but if you need to add a brand new flow of your own, you can do that easily:
- Hit the button that says Create new flow.
- Type your question into the grey box and click Next.
- You’ll be asked to add four variations of that question since no two customers will ask it in quite the same way. Write your own variations or click Generate examples and AI will suggest some for you.
- Click Done.
Top tip: If you don’t like the examples generated by AI, hit the button again to get some you do.
How to test your AI assistant
To see what your customers will experience when they use your AI assistant, you can test it out for yourself. Simply click the Try my AI button and a new window opens up to show your AI assistant.
This test AI is a fully functioning version of your AI assistant with the colours, avatar and name you’ve chosen. It works exactly as it will on a live website, so you can try it out as much as you like, until you’re ready to make it public.
You’ll be able to ask any of the questions you see in your list of flows to see the responses come up. Anything else will show your fallback message, since your AI assistant hasn’t been trained to give an answer ― yet.
Top tip: As you prepare for launch, think about everything you want to achieve with your AI assistant to turn a great launch into an amazing one.
If you’re happy with you’re AI assistant’s test run, you’re ready to go live!
How to put your AI assistant live
Once you’ve finished styling your AI assistant, you can click Publish to live and get your code to put it live right away. Or click the Launch your AI button in the top right menu whenever you’re ready.
You’ll get a snippet of code to add to your website, whether you’re using Webflow, WordPress, Shopify, Wix, or any other web design tool.
Top tip: If you need help just ask Clawson “How do I go live?” and you’ll be guided through it (you’ll meet Clawson at the end of this page).
Once you’re live, you’ll be able to add live chat for free, which we’ll talk about next.
How to add live chat
We believe live chat is an essential part of customer service automation that you can’t do without, so it’s included with your AI assistant at no extra cost. Our live chat system is easy to use and a vital link between your team and your technology.
To set it up, go to the Live chat tab.
- Add team members as your live chat agents.
- Organise them into teams.
- Set the hours your teams are online.
Voilà!
- Individual agents can now set themselves on- and offline with the click of a button to take over any intricate or unusual enquiries your AI assistant can’t help with.
- Agents can transfer chats between themselves and leave notes, so everyone knows what’s going on.
You can add as many agents as you like as seats are unlimited ― that means live chat is free to use alongside your AI assistant and there aren’t any complicated pricing systems to contend with.
Top tip: Get your team working in harmony with your AI assistant and you’ll be able to use live chat to efficiently cover every type of query. From those needing an instant answer to their question, to those who need a sympathetic ear.
Now live chat is set up, all you’ll need to pay for (after your 30 free days) is what you use. We explain that next.
How to budget for an AI assistant
Regardless of your business size or request volumes, we give everyone 30 days free to set up, launch, and use their AI assistant to start handling live customers.
There are no hidden costs and no locked features ― you get to use all our premium features for free from the moment you sign up.
Five days before your free trial ends, we use the number of requests you had during this time to calculate what you’ll pay in the next month for your AI assistant. After that, we calculate your pricing plan every three months, so you only ever pay for what you’re using, whether your price band goes up or down.
If you never go above 100 requests per month, AI Studio stays free forever.
Understanding requests
One request is essentially one complete request for help on one topic of conversation.
That means all of the conversation above is one request ― we don’t charge you per utterance (each chat bubble) as some companies do.
Moving to monthly payments
Once you go above 100 requests, pricing is as low as £99 per month. You only start paying more when the number of requests you get each month goes up.
- £99 per month for up to 500 requests
- £199 per month for up to 1,000 requests
- £289 for 1,500 requests
- £369 for 2,000 requests
- £519 for 3,000 requests
- £719 for 5,000 requests
- £969 for 10,000 requests
- £1,419 for 25,000+ requests
This way, you simply pay as you grow.
Top tip: Read more about all of this on our pricing page.
How to make your first payment
AI Studio is free for the first 30 days, so you can focus on exploring our platform and see for yourself everything an AI assistant can do to help grow your business.
Five days before the end of your free trial, we’ll send you an email to confirm your price plan for the following month and, if you choose to continue, all you need to do is add payment details.
That’s it! You’re all set up and raring to go.
Top tip: Add us to your safe sender list so your email doesn’t go to spam.
How to report progress using your dashboard
Go to the Dashboard tab to see your customer data converted into tables and charts.
- Most popular flows: This is what your customers have been talking about most often in the past 30 days. Use it to quickly spot gaps in your online information or learn where to improve your processes ― you’ll quickly reduce the need for customers to make contact.
- Busiest times: Uncover your busiest days and times of the day, so you can plan your resources around them.
- Requests: See at a glance how many requests are coming in, so you know your budget for the next month. Any spikes in activity also become obvious immediately to help pre-empt problems or deal with emergencies. View the number of requests by month or by day.
- Successful requests: A successful request is one that’s dealt with entirely by your AI assistant with no help from your team. That means the AI assistant recognised the request correctly and was able to fully resolve the query. Over time, you’ll see your success rate go up the more your AI assistant learns. The average success rate for our AI assistants is 91%.
- Live chat: See instantly how many requests are transferred over to your team (live chat is free with every AI assistant), and how many of your team are online, offline, or on a break.
- Clawson support: Our resident AI assistant, Clawson, is online 24/7 to help with anything you need in AI Studio.
Top tip: Keep an eye out for updates and information about your data or account from Clawson.
Data from your AI assistant can inform everything you do next to grow your business. In the next section, find out how easy it is to scale.
How to manage growth
You’ll be pleased to know AI Studio has everything you could ever need to grow your AI assistant in line with the ever-evolving needs of your business:
- Multiple channels for your AI assistant to live on.
- Unlimited integrations with the business systems you use.
- Conversation review service from our expert team to keep its performance high.
- Free live chat for as many agents as you want to include.
You don’t pay extra for any of these services, so there’s no cost and no limit to how much you can scale from here.
Top tip: The launch is easy and it’s what happens next that’s most exciting, so don’t stop pushing for excellence. Your powerful next-generation AI assistant can swiftly become an efficient, reliable member of your team.
The only thing left to tell you is where to get help if you need it. Naturally, we provide that 24 hours a day. Take a look below.
How to ask for help
If you ever get stuck, chat with Clawson, our resident AI assistant. Clawson is your co-pilot, there for you 24 hours a day.
Clawson answers at least 90% of all support questions, but if you have a more intricate or unusual request for help, Clawson raises a support ticket for our team to step in.
Top tip: If you don’t want to create your own AI assistant, we can always do it for you. Use our managed service and our pro team will create and/or manage your AI assistant, so you don’t have to.