Your first chat agent

#1. Create the agent

1. Open the creation window

   Go into the workspace and press Create element in the top bar. In the “What do you want to create?” window, on the Textual Agent card, press Create agent: a second window opens, “New Chat Agent”.

2. Give it a name and a scope

   In Agent name, type a name that helps you recognize it, for example “Garage Assistant”. In Business scope and industry, describe your business in a few words, for example “Auto repair shop in Milan: servicing, vehicle inspections and tires”. The scope goes into the instructions and tells the agent who it works for.

3. Create it and start with training

   At the bottom of the “New Chat Agent” window, press Create Agent: this is the button in the second window, not the one from step 1. In the window that opens, on the Train the knowledge card, press Train.

All the details, including the agent's starting values: Creating and managing the agent.

#2. Teach it about your business

The agent answers with what you teach it: this is training. Start with your website.

1. Choose your website as the source

   In Chat agentTraining, press New training, then Select Website.

2. Tell it where to read

   Choose Whole Site, paste your website address, for example https://www.esempio.it, and press Scan source.

3. Remove the pages you don't need

   In the “Extracted sources” column, use the X to remove the pages you don't need, such as the cart, the login area or empty pages.

4. Train

   Press Train Agent and wait for the website row to show “Completed”. The list updates by itself.

With the same New training button you add documents, FAQs with the exact answers to the most frequent questions, and texts with information that isn't on your website. Sources, statuses, limits and automatic website sync are in Training: how it works.

#3. Check the instructions in the Playground

The instructions, or prompt, tell the agent who it is and how to behave. The agent starts with default instructions that are already good enough to begin with.

1. Open the instructions

   Go to Chat agentPlayground and press the AGENT node, the first box on the canvas. The “Instructions and AI model” panel opens on the right.

2. Choose a starting prompt

   Open Starting prompt and choose the one closest to your business, for example “Customer support” or “Sales agent”. If you want, edit the text in Instructions for the AI (prompt) and reread the Business scope.

3. Save and publish

   Press Save changes, then Publish and, in the “Publish Agent” window, Confirm and Publish. The bar shows “Published”.

Until you publish, customers talk to the previous version: see Testing and publishing. How to write effective instructions, and what to leave to the knowledge base: Writing good instructions. All the controls: Playground: instructions and flows.

#4. Give the chat its look

1. Open the interface settings

   Go to Chat agentAgent profileInterface. On the right, the “Chat Preview” changes as you type.

2. Write the texts and choose the colors

   In Chat name, enter the name your customers will read, for example “Officina Rossi”. Write the Welcome Message and, if you want, a few Suggested Questions. Then set the Primary color and the button icon.

3. Save

   Press Save changes at the bottom of the page.

All the options: Agent profile: Interface.

#5. Test it like a customer

With Test Chat, the Playground's test chat, you try the agent inside the console, even before you put the widget on your website. Tests are real: they use up your plan's messages and trigger the workspace's active automations.

1. Open the test chat

   Press Test Chat in the agent's top bar. At the top of the panel you can see whether you are testing the saved draft or the published version.

2. Ask real questions

   Ask what your customers ask: opening hours, services, how to book. Try an off-topic question too. The full list to use before launch is in The test with 20 real questions.

3. Fix

   Where to fix a wrong answer, case by case: When an answer is wrong.

#6. Put the chat on your website

1. Copy the widget code

   In Agent profileShare, in the “Chat button” panel, press Copy. The code is different for every agent: always copy it from your own console.

2. Paste it into your website

   Paste the code into the <head> section of your website's code, just before </head>, in the template shared by all pages. On WordPress or Shopify you don't need to edit code by hand: follow WordPress or Shopify. For other websites: HTML and other sites.

3. If you want, enter your website's domain

   This is optional. In Agent profileGeneral, enter your website's domain in Publishing Domain (Optional), in lowercase, without https:// and without www, for example esempio.it, and save. From then on, the button appears only on that domain, with or without www: on another domain, or on a subdomain such as shop.esempio.it, it does not appear. See The publishing domain.

4. Check

   Open your website and reload the page: the widget appears at the bottom right, or at the bottom left if you chose that.

Everything about installation: Installing the widget.

Before you announce the chat to your customers, run the checks in Before going live.

#If something goes wrong

Start from the troubleshooting pages Website widget or Chat agent and knowledge.

#Frequently asked questions

#See also