What's the difference between a chatbot and an AI assistant?
Mostly what it can do. A chatbot answers questions; an assistant also does things — looks up an order, books a meeting, opens a ticket — and keeps the conversation's context. We build both, and most projects sit between the two: answers from your content, and the few actions that finish the conversation.
Will it work with our help desk, CRM and other systems?
Usually, yes. It connects to help desks such as Zendesk, Intercom and Freshdesk, CRMs such as Salesforce and HubSpot, and your order system, calendar or own APIs, each with only the permissions it needs.
How do you stop it making things up?
It answers only from your own content, shows the source of each answer, and says it doesn't know when the answer isn't there, passing the conversation to a person instead. A set of real questions runs against every change, so a wrong answer is caught before customers see it.
Should we use our help desk's AI, or build our own?
If your questions live in one help desk and its own AI, such as Intercom's Fin or Zendesk's, covers them, use it — we'll say so. A custom assistant pays when answers depend on your own systems, several sources or channels, permissions or actions a platform can't take, and it stays yours, on the model you choose.
Which channels can it run on?
Your website and app, WhatsApp, Slack and Microsoft Teams among others, all from one assistant with the same answers on each. Staff assistants usually live in Slack or Teams, and customer ones on your site and WhatsApp.
What happens when it can't help?
It says so and passes the conversation to your team — in your help desk, in Slack or by email — with the history and what it already did, so nobody repeats themselves. Out of hours it takes the details and opens a ticket.
Can you improve a chatbot we already have?
Yes. We start with your transcripts: the questions it gets wrong, where people give up and what it can't reach. Often the fix is the content and how it's searched rather than a new chatbot.
Is our data safe?
Each person sees only what they're allowed to, personal data is kept out of logs and prompts, and conversations are stored in the region you choose. Where data mustn't leave your network, the assistant can run on a private model.
Which languages can it speak?
Most of the languages your customers use, English, Spanish and Portuguese among them. It answers in the language it's asked in, even when your content is written in one.
How long does it take, and what does it cost?
Choosing the conversations and preparing the content takes one to two weeks, a working assistant tested on your questions two to six, and a pilot on one channel a few weeks more. Running cost is mostly the model's use per conversation, which we estimate before we build. After a first call we send a written estimate.