# Let customers use their own AI assistant

> Your customers can shop and configure through the AI assistant they already use — with your prices, your rules, and an off switch they control.

Source: CBX documentation, version 3.x (released). Canonical page: https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/let-customers-use-their-own-assistant. Last updated 2026-08-26.

---
> **Audience:** store owners and shop managers · **Scope:** letting customers shop your store through
> their own AI assistant, and what you and they can see and control · **Last reviewed:** 2026-08-26

**What this does** — Your customers can hand your store to the AI assistant they already use, and say
things like *"find me a linear luminaire for a 24-foot run in 4000K and put it in my cart."* The
assistant browses your catalog, works through the product's questions, respects every rule you have
written, sees the price *their* customer group is allowed to see, and fills their cart. Then it gives
them a link to open that cart in your shop and pay.

This is the opposite direction from the [AI product assistant](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/) on your configurator pages.
That one is yours — your model, your prompt, your bill. This one is theirs: they bring the assistant,
they pay for it, and your store is simply one of the things it can use.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  CUST["Your customer,\nin their own AI tool"] --> AI["Their assistant"]
  AI -- "one address" --> STORE["Your store"]
  STORE --> B1["browses your catalog\nat their group's prices"]
  STORE --> B2["configures a product\nthrough your rules"]
  STORE --> B3["fills their cart\nand hands back a link"]
```

## What you need

- A store on a public web address, reachable over **https**.
- Nothing else. The door ships with CBX and is already open — there is no setting to switch on and
  nothing to install.

## What to give a customer

One web address:

```
https://your-store.example/cbx-api/mcp
```

That is all. Their assistant works out the rest by itself: it asks the store how to get permission,
sends the customer to a sign-in page, and takes it from there.

## What the customer goes through, once

1. They add your store's address to their AI tool.
2. Their browser opens a **sign-in card** from your store. They sign in with the same e-mail and
   password they use in your shop. If they do not have an account yet, they make one in the shop
   first.

   ![The store's own sign-in card, naming the assistant that is asking](img/agent-sign-in.jpeg)

3. They see a short **consent screen** naming what the assistant is asking to do — browse, configure,
   use their cart — and approve it.

   ![The consent screen, naming what the assistant will be able to do](img/agent-consent.jpeg)

4. That is it. From then on the assistant can shop for them until they turn it off.

**Their assistant never sees their password.** The sign-in happens in their own browser, between them
and your store.

## What the assistant may and may not do

**It may** browse your products, configure them, see prices, and use that one customer's cart — add
lines, change quantities, copy a line, reopen one to change it, remove one, and save a cart for later.

**It may not** reach anything else in your store. It cannot see your other customers, your orders,
your settings, your catalog behind the scenes, or anything a shopper would not see. That is not a
matter of asking it nicely: a customer's access and a back-office access are two different kinds of
key, and a key is only ever one of the two.

**It cannot check out.** The assistant takes the customer as far as a filled cart and hands them a
link. Addresses, delivery, payment and the order itself stay on your pages, where the customer does
them personally.

## Your prices stay your prices

Everything the assistant is told about price comes from the same rules your storefront uses:

- The customer's **group pricing** applies, exactly as it does when they browse the shop themselves.
- If their group is not allowed to see prices, the assistant is not told the prices — not shown zero,
  not shown a placeholder. It simply never receives them, so it has nothing to repeat.
- If a product is set to show its total but not what each option adds, that holds here too.
- Net or gross, whichever your store shows that customer, is what the assistant sees.

There is nothing extra to configure and nothing that can drift out of step with your shop, because it
is the same pricing, read the same way.

## What the customer can see and switch off

On their account page in your shop, each customer sees:

- **Connected assistants** — which assistants they have given access to, and when.
- **Recent activity** — what each one has been doing, in plain words: *"Chose an option"*, *"Added a
  configuration to the cart"*. Looking at things is listed too, not only changing them.
- **Turn off** — one button per assistant. It takes effect on that assistant's very next attempt.

![The customer's account page: connected assistants, what each has done, and a Turn off button](img/connected-assistants.jpeg)

You do not have to do anything for this; it is on their account page already.

## What you can see

In **CBX → API tokens** you can see every access that exists, including the ones customers granted to
their assistants, and you can revoke any of them yourself. Each row names the assistant, the customer
it acts for, and what it is allowed to do.

## Good to know

- **One customer, one basket.** An assistant works the same cart the customer sees when they open your
  shop. Nothing lives in a separate place.
- **Reopening a line takes it out of the cart** until the assistant puts it back. If a customer says
  "my item disappeared while the assistant was changing it", that is why — it comes back when the
  change is finished.
- **A saved cart is not a copy.** It stays live, so later changes show up in it.
- **Access does not last forever.** An assistant's permission is short-lived and quietly renewed while
  it is in use; if a customer stops using it, it lapses on its own.

## Related

- [Set up the AI product assistant](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/set-up-the-assistant) — the one on *your* configurator pages
- [Connect your own AI assistant](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/connect-your-own-ai-assistant) — an assistant that works for you,
  in the back office
- [Where prices come from](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/pricing/where-prices-come-from)