How to Add an AI Chatbot to Your Website
What You Need Before Starting
All you need is an AI Apps API account and a website where you can add HTML. The chatbot works on any site, whether it runs on WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, a static HTML page, or a custom application. The embed code is a simple iframe or script tag that you paste before the closing </body> tag.
If you already have documentation, FAQ pages, or product information written down somewhere, have that ready to upload. The chatbot can start answering questions immediately once it has knowledge to draw from. If you do not have content prepared, you can still create the chatbot first and add knowledge later.
Step-by-Step Setup
Log into your admin panel, open the AI Chatbot app, and click Create New Chatbot. Give it a name that helps you identify it (like "Website Support Bot" or "Sales Assistant"). You can always change the name later.
Select which AI model powers your chatbot. GPT-4.1-mini is the recommended starting point for most websites. It responds quickly, handles conversational tone well, and costs 2-4 credits per response. You can switch models at any time without losing your training data. See Best AI Models for Chatbots for a detailed comparison.
Go to the Knowledge Base section and upload content the chatbot should know. You can paste text directly, upload PDF or text files, or crawl your website to pull in all your existing pages automatically. The platform breaks your content into chunks and creates searchable embeddings at 3 credits per chunk. A typical business site with 30-50 pages costs under $1 to fully index.
The system prompt tells the chatbot how to behave. Include your business name, the tone you want (professional, friendly, casual), and any rules about what topics the chatbot should or should not discuss. A simple starting prompt like "You are a helpful assistant for [Business Name]. Answer questions using the provided knowledge base. If you do not know the answer, say so and suggest the visitor contact support." works well. You can refine this over time as you see real conversations. See How to Configure Chatbot Personality and Tone for more details.
In the chatbot settings, find the Embed section. Copy the provided code snippet. It will look something like an iframe URL pointing to your chatbot's unique endpoint, with your account ID and chatbot ID in the path.
Paste the embed code into your website's HTML, just before the closing
</body> tag. If you use WordPress, you can add it through a custom HTML widget or your theme's footer settings. On Shopify, add it to theme.liquid. On any static site, paste it directly into your HTML files. For more detailed embedding instructions, see How to Embed a Chat Widget on Any Web Page.
Visit your website and click the chat button. Ask questions that your training data should cover. Check that the answers are accurate and the tone matches what you want. If something is off, adjust your system prompt or add more knowledge to cover the gap.
After Setup: What to Do Next
Once your chatbot is running, there are several features you can enable to make it more useful:
- Human handoff lets the chatbot transfer conversations to your team when it cannot help. See How to Set Up Chatbot to Human Handoff.
- Voice features let visitors speak to the chatbot and hear spoken responses. See How to Add Voice Input and Output.
- Lead capture can collect visitor contact information during the conversation naturally. See How to Build a Chatbot for Lead Capture.
- Email monitoring lets the same chatbot answer incoming emails using its knowledge base. See How to Monitor Email With an AI Chatbot.
The chatbot improves over time as you add more knowledge and refine its system prompt based on real visitor conversations. Check the conversation history in your admin panel regularly to see what visitors are asking and where the chatbot could do better.
Ready to add AI chat to your website? Create your account and have a chatbot running in minutes.
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