How to set up your AI Studio account
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How to use AI Studio
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13 min read
Updated on 2nd Jan 2024
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 assistant using NLP (natural language processing) and LLM (large language models) where appropriate
- 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 integrate with your business systems
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 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 less than 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 the title of the flow and its content, 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 10-15 flows to launch your AI assistant because it’s sophisticated enough to learn on the job, but our auto-generation from your website URL will likely produce many more.
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 detect new flows you should add based on the questions real customers have already asked. The first month can be surprising, since these questions often differ to the questions you think they’ll ask!
Top tip: Launch your AI assistant straight away and you’ll have 30 full days of data to learn from.
As time goes on, your AI assistant is automatically trained to answer more and more questions. 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, it’ll be automatically suggested as a worthwhile update for you to approve.
Anything else is picked up by our expert team as part of our conversation review service. Our experienced team of language experts, psychologists, designers and writers are your essential human in the loop, 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.
You’ll get a notification whenever there’s a new training suggestion and nothing goes live without your say so.
You can keep tabs on how each individual flow is performing using the tally in your list of flows:
- The first percentage on the left shows your success rate (how often your AI assistant both understands and resolves a query without any input from your team)
- The second percentage shows how much positive customer feedback the flow gets
- The figure on the right shows how many times the flow has been used
Top tip: Rest assured 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 gives out 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. Type in the question, just like your customer would (or copy/paste it in), eg. “Can I make a return?” to see the answer appear in real time.
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 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.
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 (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. 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 can preview your AI assistant. Talk with it as you make changes, to make sure you’re happy with how it looks.
Top tip: For maximum business impact, choose a gender neutral name for your AI assistant to avoid stereotyping and bias, and reduce the likelihood of it ever being misconstrued as a human.
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 three questions your customers can simply click on to go straight to the answer. These are chosen from flows with the lightbulb switched on.
- Turn on only three lightbulbs to pick three specific flows for the shortcut
- Keep more lightbulbs lit and three will be randomly selected with every new chat
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! 👋
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 Create. That will then generate 20 alternative versions of your question to help train your AI assistant to answer common variations.
Top tip: Delete any variations you don’t want to keep using the bin icon.
How to test your AI assistant
You can see exactly what your customers experience when they use your AI assistant by looking at the chat preview on the right hand side of your flows list.
This 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 as much as you like before making 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.
Next, you’re ready to go live!
How to put your AI assistant live
Once you’ve finished styling your AI assistant, you can 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, click on Request viewer in the top menu and you’ll be able to see all the conversations taking place between your AI assistant and your customers. Rest assured, all personal information (PII) is removed in line with our enterprise grade security standards.
You’ll also be able to link up your AI assistant with all your go-to business tools, which we’ll talk about next.
How to integrate with your business systems
Your AI assistant can do more for your team than answer static questions. You can also link it up with all the business systems you use, from your CRM to your calendar or payment system, or external apps like HubSpot, Jira and Zapier. We’ve done all the hard work for you, putting in place all the API connectors you need to transform customer support services.
If you want any help completing the set up process, book in for a FREE 30-minute call with us. We’re constantly refining our process as the technology advances and love to meet new customers along the way.
To set up integrations yourself, you’ll need to let the AI assistant know when to take the required action. Say you want to log new leads to your HubSpot CRM as they come in, so your sales team can make contact straight away. Without integration, your process might go something like this:
Your customer chats to the AI assistant
Customer: Can I speak to sales?
AI assistant: Sure, can I take your first name?
Customer: Jo
AI assistant: And your surname?
Customer: Brown
AI assistant: What’s your email address please?
Customer: jo@email.com
One of your agents will then launch HubSpot, create a new contact and manually add all of the details above (and more). After that, they’ll let the Sales team know the new contact is ready for them, but that all takes time. Integrate your AI assistant with HubSpot and it can do all of this for you.
Setting up your flow ready for action
Step 1: First, you’ll need to identify which flow will prompt the action. In this case, the customer asks “Can I speak to sales?”.
Add or open this flow and add a new bubble. Choose Question.
You’ll then add all the follow on questions you need to ask to be able to complete the action at the end. Here, it’s the person’s contact details.
Step 2: Now, add a new bubble to your chat and select Action. This is where you choose the system you want to connect with (or you can add your own custom connector).
Step 3: Choose what Event you want to take place once the connection is made.
Here, you want your AI assistant to automatically create a new contact in your HubSpot CRM whenever a new lead comes in for sales, so they can follow up promptly and have all the details they need to hand.
Step 4: You’ll need to add Parameters for the new contact in HubSpot, which simply tells the AI assistant which bit of information to put where in the new contact record (based on the questions you ask to gather information).
To do this, type a forward slash (“/”) in the field you’re editing and a box automatically pops up with all available parameters.
Click on the parameter you want to use and your AI assistant will link it up in the right place in the CRM contact record.
Step 5: Finally, tell the AI assistant what label it Returns to the CRM as a tag for the new data. Here, it logs the new contact as a SalesEnquiry.
You’re now ready to Connect with HubSpot.
You’ll be asked to authenticate the connection using API credentials, which are set by the system you’re connecting to eg. HubSpot.
HubSpot uses a Bearer Token, but other systems might use an API Key or Basic Authentication. These API credentials, in any format, are simply a string of numbers and characters; you get them from your account for the system you want to connect to eg. HubSpot (ask them for help to find it if you need to).
You must protect your API credentials like you would a traditional password and not share the code with anyone outside your organisation or who does not need to know it.
Once you’ve authorised the connection using your API credentials, you’re ready to Publish your flow and your AI assistant can start taking the action(s) you’ve set it up to do.
Top tip: To learn more about APIs and how they work, read our blog post.
Once you’ve set up integrations, your AI assistant becomes infinitely more helpful. You can add live chat for free too, which we’ll talk about in the next section.
How to add live chat
We believe live chat is such a useful tool for customer service automation 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.
- 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.
If you want to automatically direct a specific query to a live agent, you can. Simply open your flow to add a Live chat bubble and include a text response to explain eg. “One of our team needs to do this for you, so I’ll hand you over to them now.”
One of your team then picks up this live chat and takes over the conversation.
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 number of requests, 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 your 30 free days 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
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 👇
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 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.
What would you like to do now?
You can launch an AI assistant now or book a discovery call with our team. If you’re already set up, log in to AI Studio to make changes to your AI assistant, and if you’re not, take advantage of a FREE 30 minute set up call with our experts.