# The AI product assistant > A chat advisor on your configurator pages that explains the product, makes selections for the visitor, and reports what your store is missing. Source: CBX documentation, version 4.0 preview (unreleased). Canonical page: https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/. Last updated 2026-08-25. --- > **Audience:** store owners and shop managers · **Scope:** what the assistant is, what it can and > cannot do, and what running it involves · **Last reviewed:** 2026-08-11 The AI product assistant is a chat panel on your configurator pages and on the cart. Visitors ask questions in their own words — and their own language — and the assistant answers from your product data, makes selections for them, and guides them to a finished configuration. It is off until you configure it; see [Set up the assistant](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/set-up-the-assistant). ## What it knows The assistant is briefed from what your store already contains — it does not invent product facts: - The product's **pages, questions and answers**, with their prices as your store calculates them. - The **descriptions** you write on products, questions and answers. - The product's **detail panes** — this is where it learns specifications, delivery terms, warranty conditions and anything else you put there. A well-filled set of detail panes is the single best way to make the assistant genuinely helpful. - The visitor's **live configuration**: what is selected right now, what a rule currently allows, what is still open, and the running total. When a visitor asks something your data does not answer, the assistant says so honestly — and files the gap on [the wishlist](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/work-the-wishlist) so your team learns what is missing. ## What it can do - **Explain and advise**: compare options, explain why something is unavailable, answer "what would happen if…" questions without changing anything. - **Configure**: make selections the visitor asks for, respecting every rule your product defines. Selections the rules forbid are refused, never forced. - **Guide the page**: switch configurator pages and point at a question when the visitor asks to be shown something. The visitor sees the page move and the question highlighted. - **Finish the purchase**: put the completed configuration in the cart — only when the visitor clearly asks for it, and only if you allow it in the settings. - **Work the cart**: on the cart page it can change a line's quantity, remove a line, copy one so the visitor can configure a second that differs, or reopen a line for editing — the same things the buttons on the cart page do, and only if you allow it. It reads the basket first, so a visitor with several lines can talk about any of them, not just the one they came from. When a visitor with more than one line says something that fits several of them, the assistant does not pick for them: it puts one button per line on screen and lets them tap the one they meant. ## What it never does - It never sees or invents prices — every figure comes from your store's own calculation. - It never does anything a visitor could not do themselves on the page. It has no access to your administration, your orders, or other visitors' data. - It never confirms a change on the visitor's behalf when a question is set to "let the customer confirm" — the visitor is always asked. - It never pushes to the cart uninvited, and it respects the permissions you set. - It never removes a line without asking first and being told yes in a later message, and the question always names the line it is about to remove — so a visitor with several lookalike rows can see which one is at stake. - It never touches a line that is not in the cart in front of it: not another shopper's, and not one of the same visitor's own older carts. Once a cart has become an order it can only be read. ## What running it involves - **An Anthropic API key** — the assistant is powered by Claude. You pay Anthropic per message, in the range of cents; a rate limit per visitor keeps spend bounded. The key never leaves your server. - **A scheduled script** if you use the conversation journal — it writes the per-conversation reviews and enforces the retention period. See [Schedule the recurring scripts](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/getting-started/schedule-the-recurring-scripts). ## Where you see what it did Every conversation is recorded in the [conversation journal](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/read-the-conversation-journal): what the visitor asked, what the assistant answered, every selection it made and why it took each action. The [wishlist](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/work-the-wishlist) collects what your store was missing, [Recommendations](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/send-recommendations-to-your-team) turns all of it into a living to-do list per team — with a contact and an email per group — and [Conversation Insights](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/run-the-insights-report) shows how that list is moving. The assistant above works for your visitors. The store can also open a door to an AI assistant that works for **you** — one you already use, given a token that says exactly what it may touch, so it can build products, write texts and rules, or read what visitors asked for. See [Connect your own AI assistant](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/4.0-preview/admin-guide/ai-assistant/connect-your-own-ai-assistant).