Get started with help.ai

help.ai puts an AI agent in front of your customers that answers from your own knowledge, hands the conversation to your team when it needs a person, and shows you what customers ask. This guide takes you from a new workspace to a live chat widget on your website.

Your workspace lives at help.ai/w/your-workspace. Every step below starts from the sidebar. Until you're set up, the Dashboard also shows a card with your next step: Create your first Agent, then Add deployment, then Start a Chat.

1. Add your knowledge#

1. Open Library and select Create Library Item.
2. In Type, keep File, choose a document such as your returns policy and select Upload File. Or choose Website, enter its URL under Links and select Create Website.
3. Wait until the item's Content Extraction column shows Ready.

2. Create an AI agent#

1. Open AI Agents and select Create Agent.
2. Under Basics, give it a Name. Under Instructions, describe its job, its audience and what it must never do.
3. Under Model, choose an AI model.
4. Under Knowledge, leave Library empty to use every ready item added on the Library page, or pick the items this agent should read.
5. Keep Enabled on under Availability and select Create Agent.

3. Test it in the dashboard#

In the AI Agents list, open Chat on your agent's row and choose New conversation, or select Try it in chat while you edit it. Ask the questions your customers ask most. If an answer is thin, add the missing knowledge to Library or tighten the agent's Instructions, then ask again. Saved changes apply from the agent's next reply.

A test chat runs the agent as you set it up: its instructions, knowledge, model, tools and skills. To try it in the widget the way visitors will, use the deployment's Preview after the next step. See Test your AI agent before customers see it.

4. Add a deployment#

A deployment decides where the agent meets people. Open Deployments, select Create Deployment and choose a Channel:

This guide follows the website widget. For the API channel, see Call your agent from your own app.

Under Basics, give it a Name, check its Link and pick the AI Agent that answers. Select Create Deployment. The deployment opens on its Settings tab. Chat widget is where you style the chat (website widget and hosted page only), and Install has the code.

Visitors reach the agent only while the agent is Enabled and the deployment is Live under Availability. Both are on when you create them.

5. Install the widget#

Open the deployment's Install tab, copy the Quick install (auto-mount) snippet and paste it into your site inside <head> or just before </body>. Reload your site and the chat bubble appears in the corner.

What to do next#

• Turn on Talk to a person in the deployment's Chat widget tab → Features so visitors can ask for a person, then answer their requests in Inbox.
• Add Help center and News tabs from your Content collections, under the deployment's Settings → Tabs (up to 4 tabs).
• Check Analytics → Conversations after a few days to see what customers ask and where answers fall short.

Related#

• Create your first AI agent
• Add the chat widget to your website
• Let visitors talk to a person