# Latest features: the AI assistant > What's new in the configurator chat advisor — it acts through the same API the page uses, journals every action, and files what it could not do as measured demand. Source: CBX documentation, version 3.x (released). Canonical page: https://docs.configbox.at/docs/features/latest/ai-assistant. Last updated 2026-08-25. --- **A Claude-backed advisor on the configurator and the cart — and, behind it, the record of everything it did and everything it could not.** It is the largest single addition of this period, and it is deliberately not a chatbot bolted onto a product page: it is a second client of the API the page itself runs on, which is what makes it safe and what makes it useful. ← [Back to Latest features](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/features/latest/) --- ## What the visitor gets A floating chat panel beside the configurator. The assistant knows the product — structure, answers, prices, descriptions, detail panes — talks in the visitor's language, and **acts**: makes selections, explains why an option is unavailable, runs what-ifs without committing them, scrolls the page to the question it is discussing, opens a cart configuration for editing, and adds the finished configuration to the cart. - [The configurator chat advisor, in full](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor) - [Admin Guide: set up the assistant](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/set-up-the-assistant) ## One state, two clients — why it is safe The assistant's tools are thin wrappers over the **same controller tasks the page's own JavaScript calls**, executed in the visitor's own request and session. So: - There is **one** configuration state — the session's cart position. - There is **one** validation path: the same ownership, product, selectable and confirmation guards that protect the page protect the assistant. - There is **one** refresh mechanism — after the assistant acts, the panel re-renders from the server, so its work looks exactly like the visitor's own clicks. The consequence is the whole security story: the assistant **can never do anything the visitor could not do themselves**. No admin surface, no catalog write, no other customer's data behind any tool. Even prompt injection is bounded by it — visitor text goes into messages, never the system prompt, so a hostile conversation can at worst call the visitor-scope tools. - [The concept, and the security stance it produces](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor#1-the-concept--one-state-two-clients) - [The runtime API both clients use](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/runtime_api) ## Honesty is configured, not hoped for The prompt guardrails encode failure modes the journal actually caught, which is worth knowing before deciding whether to switch it on: - **Never claim an unverified change** — a selection that did not stick is a failed selection whatever the engine said. - **Live state outranks conversation history** — the visitor clicks between messages. - **Preset defaults are not the visitor's choices.** - **Pricing language follows the visitor's customer group** — no figure is called net or gross unless the data's own fields say so for that figure, and a group that [may not see prices](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/pricing/where-prices-come-from) is not told them. - **The hard rule:** saying "I can't" without filing a wishlist item in the same turn is forbidden. - [The behavioral contract](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor#6-the-behavioral-contract-prompt-guardrails) ## What it could not do becomes data The assistant files what it could not deliver, categorized: missing product information, a missing capability, an observed bug, a translation gap, UX friction. An item filed **with** a visitor's triggering request counts as measured demand; one filed without is a gap the assistant noticed itself, and the two are kept apart on purpose. Three layers sit over that: - **The demand ledger** — every wish carrying a visitor's own words, aggregated live by category over a selectable window. Plain SQL, no analysis run, no tokens: it is current the moment a visitor asks for something the shop cannot do. - **Per-conversation lessons** — a review of the full transcript: what worked, what went wrong, every wishlist item judged in context, and the gaps the runtime tagging missed. - **A durable recommendation backlog** — one row per distinct problem, owned by one stakeholder, with a status lifecycle. It replaced snapshot reports because a frozen duplicate of a self-maintaining list only invites reading a stale copy. New evidence against a *done* recommendation flips it to **regressed**: the fix did not hold. - [The wishlist, the journal and the analysis layers](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor#7-the-wishlist) - [Admin Guide: work the wishlist](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/work-the-wishlist) · [run the insights report](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/run-the-insights-report) ## The journal Every conversation, every turn, and every event inside a turn: the model's stated reasoning, each tool call with its payload and outcome, each attempted selection with its previous value and whether it was accepted, each page action **with the reason the model gave**, each refused confirmation, each error. One card per action — a tool call and what it meant are two rows by design, and the timeline pairs them back so a selection reads *Battery capacity: 750 Wh (was 625 Wh)* rather than three ids. It is gated **stricter than the admin area** — it shows visitors' words verbatim — and pruned by a retention setting. - [The journal's tables and event taxonomy](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor#8-the-journal) - [Admin Guide: read the conversation journal](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/read-the-conversation-journal) ## Getting the findings to the people who can act The same findings, seen one audience at a time — content managers, the product owner, developers, the vendor, the store team — each with its own contact settings and a way out of the admin: an approved email, recorded with its exact text, flipping the covered items to *sent*. - [Admin Guide: send recommendations to your team](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/ai-assistant/send-recommendations-to-your-team) - [The outreach layer](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor#9-the-analysis-layers) ## Running it Settings live in the store settings' **AI Configurator Assistant** group: API key, chat model, analysis model, persona, greeting, house rules, three separate permissions (may add to cart, may drive the page, may change the cart), a per-session rate limit, journal switches and retention. The API key never leaves the server. Two commands support it: `configbox:chatadvisor:analyze` runs the lessons sweep and enforces journal retention; `configbox:chatadvisor:relay` handles pending relays. Both want a cron entry. - [Configuration](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor#2-configuration) · [the commands](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/cli_commands#1-the-commands) · [scheduling them](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/admin-guide/getting-started/schedule-the-recurring-scripts) ## Making a custom question type legible to it A stock question type needs no help. A custom one — especially one whose selection is a JSON object — is a black box to a model, which guesses at the payload, gets rejected by the store, and the conversation dies. The framework lets a type *state* what a client would otherwise have to guess. - [Question types the AI understands and controls](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/customization/question_types_and_ai) ## Two AI surfaces, two trust models The assistant and the [MCP server](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/features/latest/mcp-server) are both AI surfaces over the same store, and they are deliberately not the same thing: the assistant is driven by an anonymous visitor and scoped to that visitor's own cart position; the MCP server is driven by an operator's assistant with shell access and scoped to the catalog. - [Where the MCP server docks in](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/chat_advisor#11-where-the-mcp-server-docks-in) --- *Next: [payments & commerce](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/features/latest/payments-and-commerce) · [catalog operations](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/features/latest/catalog-operations) · [back to Latest features](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/features/latest/)*