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Configure a context-sensitive chatbot to discuss page content
Overview
Name of explainer: Configure a context-sensitive chatbot to discuss page content
Creative theme: Beginning AI with WordPress and AI Engine
Software / platforms used (for this explainer):
WordPress, AI Engine (paid version of the plugin)
User level: BEGINNER
This is explainer 6 of 8 in this series
This series includes:
- Get tooled up!
- Install the AI Engine WordPress plugin and explore the interface
- Use AI Engine to generate WordPress page content and images
- Create and refine text using AI Engine’s ‘copilot’ and ‘magic wand’
- Configure a GPT-driven chatbot and add it to the site
- Configure a context-sensitive chatbot to discuss page content
- Use a Pinecone index to create and test embeddings to improve the chatbot
- Where to next? Additional AI Engine functions and other generative AI apps
The software and apps used in this series
This series of explainers uses the following platforms/apps:
1: WordPress
We use WordPress throughout this series. To follow along you’ll need your own WordPress installation/site. If you’ve never installed WordPress see these guides to get up and running:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/guides/
https://www.wpbeginner.com/start-a-wordpress-blog/
You don’t need to choose a theme or add plug-ins to your installation – You just need a working, ‘blank’ installation.
2: AI Engine (WordPress plugin)
AI Engine is one of the most popular AI plug-ins for WordPress. It offers an intuitive interface for performing AI tasks including generating text content for your site, generating images, and creating chatbots. We use the FREE version of the plug-in in explainers one through four. To complete the processes in explainers five and six you will need the paid, PRO version of the plug-in.
3: OpenAI account
OpenAI is the company behind the famous GPT-3 generative AI model that was made public in late 2022. You’ll need a FREE OpenAI account to link AI Engine to their AI models to generate content and offer a chatbot. Note a free account includes a limited amount of usage credits – If you go on to deploy bots on live / commercial sites you’ll need to pay for your ongoing usage.
4: Pinecone vector database account
We introduce and use Pinecone in explainers five and six, when we use a Pinecone index to store information about our arcade gaming event (embeddings) to improve the quality of the responses from our chatbot. A FREE Pinecone account will work for this series, and if you go on to use it in a business context you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
The pre-requisities
This is a BEGINNER explainer series. You need a basic knowledge of Windows, WordPress and downloading and installing software to follow along. We’re keeping it simple and do not go into the technical complexities of interacting with AI models. YOU are responsible for your websites and their data – We cannot be held responsible for issues arising from your use (or inability to use) any of the platforms, apps or plug-ins used in this series.
AI Engine in action in this series:
Throughout this series we use a fictional website for an Arcade Festival event and use AI Engine to generate content and offer helpbots to our visitors:
Creating AI images for the event site using AI Engine
Creating a site helpbot using AI Engine
Asking the helpbot to discuss content on a page
Creating embeddings to tailor helpbot responses
Why would I do this?
General chatbots are a fun addition to a website, but if your site is business-focused you’ll need your bot to help your (potential) customers by offering reliable, accurate information. A context-sensitive (or content-aware) bot is able to ‘see’ your page content and discuss it, which is useful for product pages, help pages or if your content is complex or technical. Our bot will discuss the content of the Arcade History page, including being able to summarise it, extract key information and translate it.
Let’s do it!
Click the play icon to watch this explainer video. Subtitles are available – Click the settings cog at the bottom right for options. You can watch this video full-screen by clicking the full-screen icon at the bottom right:
Good to know
As indicated in the explainer, AI Engine’s Chatbot functionality is constantly evolving – You may find the interface looks a little different to that shown in the video.
We’re using the paid, PRO version of AI Engine for this explainer. You will not be able to select the ‘content aware’ option in the free version of the plugin. See the AI Engine website for pricing information.
It is essential that the {CONTENT} placeholder (written exactly as shown) is added to the CONTEXT field of your bot. If you don’t do this, your bot will give confused responses to questions like ‘Summarise this page for me’:
AI models accept prompts up to a certain length (measured in ‘tokens’). For this reason, it isn’t possible for a bot to simply ‘see’ a group of pages or your entire site. We look at how to resolve this next…
Where to next?
In the next explainer we’ll continue working with the paid, PRO version of AI Engine.
We’ll use a FREE Pinecone account to create EMBEDDINGS, which allow us to store key information about our event (including dates and times, ticket prices and who’s attending) and have the bot use this when interacting with our visitors.
At time of writing the PRO version of the AI Engine plug-in starts at around 50 dollars. AI Engine latest pricing.
Remember, this is part of a series of explainers – Join us again for the other explainers in the series 🙂
Notes and updates
There are no notes or advisories at this time. This video explainer was last updated in May 2023. This page was last updated in May 2023.
We are not responsible for the content of any external webpages or software downloaded from third party sites. You should NOT deploy AI Engine directly to production / live sites without testing it in a staging / development environment first. We recommend using a blank/clean WordPress install for learning purposes. Generative AI is constantly evolving and we cannot guarantee the content in this series is up-to-date past the date specified above. All links are included in good faith at the time of writing. Modern apps offer users many ways to accomplish a single task, and for reasons of clarity we choose not to refer to multiple options. All computer users must run up to date virus / security software at all times to minimise the risk of data loss.
This is number 6 of 8 explainer videos in this series. Make sure you join us for the others!
