Setting Up Your AI Agent for the First Time

Your AI Agent is on by default when you install. But improving your Agent’s abilities takes just a few steps. This guide walks you through the process from start to finish.

Step 1: Configure Your Agent's Persona

Navigate to AI Agent → Persona in your dashboard. This is where you define who your agent is and how it communicates.

Identity:

Name: Give your agent a name that fits your brand (e.g., "Lindsay", "Alex", "Sam")
Role: Choose a role that matches how you want the agent to interact with customers:
- Customer Support Agent: Focused on resolving issues
- Sales Associate: Balanced between support and selling
- Personal Shopper: Emphasis on product recommendations
- Brand Ambassador: Represents your brand story and values
- Product Expert: Deep product knowledge focus
- Store Concierge: Full-service, high-touch experience
Gender: Choose female, male, or neutral (affects pronouns)
Age: Sets the general communication style

Brand Voice:

Brand Summary: Write a short description of your brand's story and personality. The agent uses this to stay on-brand in conversations.
Tone Sliders: Adjust four dimensions from 0 to 100:
- Formality: Casual ("hey! no worries") ↔ Formal ("Thank you for reaching out")
- Enthusiasm: Gentle and reserved ↔ Bold and energetic
- Empathy: Direct and to the point ↔ Warm and understanding
- Humor: Serious and professional ↔ Playful and lighthearted
Brand Phrases: Add catchphrases or expressions your brand uses (e.g., "Stay golden!", "You're part of the family now")
Sign-Offs: Custom closing lines for messages, similar to Brand Phrases, but used at the close of a conversation
Emoji: Choose which emoji the agent can use and how often
Blocked Content: Words or phrases the agent should never say (e.g., competitor names)

Step 2: Add Your Knowledge Base

Navigate to AI Agent → Knowledge Base. This is what your agent draws on to answer customer questions.

Start with these essentials:

Pull in your Shopify policies: These are pulled at install, but make sure everything is there! Shipping, returns/refunds, and contact info. These are available with one click under "Available Policies".
Approve your Pages: When you install, we will pull available, potentially relevant pages. Go through and approve these for the AI to learn from, they’re waiting for you in the Knowledge Base tab.
Upload your key documents: If you have documentation about your brand, products, industry, company story, etc, upload these!
Add your top 5-10 Verified Answers: Think about the questions your customers ask most. Write exact Q&A pairs for those. Enable "Bypass LLM" for answers you want returned word-for-word. This will give you complete control over your most important questions.
Add key Facts: Any critical details the agent should know that might not be in your documents yet (e.g., "We ship all orders within 2 business days", "We do not offer international shipping").

You can always add more later. A good starting point is your policies + 5-10 verified answers.

Step 3: Choose Your Skills

Navigate to AI Agent → Skills. Review the available skills and enable the ones that make sense for your store.

The defaults (Track Order, Search Products, Check Inventory, Upsell Recommendations, and Escalate to Human) work well for most stores. Only enable Cancel Order and Initiate Return if you're comfortable with customers initiating those actions via SMS.

Step 4 (Optional): Customize your Upsell Bundles:

If you enable the Upsell Recommendations skill, select the gear icon to create bundles, letting the Agent know what products work best together and why. This will immediately drive more incremental revenue!

Step 5: Test in the Playground

Navigate to AI Agent → Playground. Before going live, test your setup:

Send a few common customer questions and check the responses
Verify the tone matches your brand
Try asking about your return policy, shipping times, and product availability
Check that the agent escalates when it should (ask something it shouldn't know the answer to)
If a response is great, use the quick action to save it as a Verified Answer
If a response is wrong, go back and add a Fact or Verified Answer to correct it

What's Next?

Monitor conversations in your Inbox to see how the agent is performing
Add more knowledge as you notice gaps — if the agent escalates a question it should know, add a Verified Answer or Fact
Refine your tone as you see real conversations — small slider adjustments can make a big difference
Review the Playground after any knowledge base changes to confirm they work as expected