FAQ | Ask Any AI | Help Center

Getting started

What does this app do?

It adds an "Ask AI" widget to your product pages. Shoppers can type a question about the product and get an answer right there, instead of leaving the page or emailing you.

They can ask your own store AI (answers appear inside the widget), or send the question to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or Grok.

How do I set it up?

Four steps, and the app walks you through all of them on the home page:

Index at least one product.
Pick which AI providers you want to offer.
Add the "Ask Any AI" block to your product page in the theme editor.
That's it — the widget is live.

Most stores are done in under ten minutes.

Do I need to touch any code?

No. Indexing happens in the app, and the widget is added through Shopify's theme editor like any other section or block.

How do I add the widget to my theme?

Go to the app home page and click "Add widget to theme". That opens your theme editor with the block ready to place. Drag it wherever you want it on the product page — usually just under the Add to cart button.

If you'd rather do it manually: Online Store → Themes → Customize → open a product page → Add block → "Ask Any AI".

Why isn't the widget showing on my product page?

Two things need to be true:

The block has been added to your product template in the theme editor.
The product has been indexed in the app.

The widget hides itself on products that aren't indexed, so a shopper never sees an empty box. Check the Products page in the app to confirm the product's status.

What permissions does the app ask for?

It reads your products, writes product metafields (that's how the widget gets its data), and reads your themes (that's how the app can tell whether the widget is actually installed). Nothing else.

---

Indexing and the knowledge base

What does "indexing" actually do?

The app reads what's already on the product — title, description, vendor, product type — and uses AI to turn it into:

A cleaned-up, structured description
A spec sheet
An FAQ
A short summary the AI uses when answering
A few questions shoppers are likely to ask, shown as tappable chips in the widget

Together that's the product's knowledge base. It's the only thing your store AI is allowed to answer from.

How do I index products?

Go to Products and choose one of three options:

Add products — pick individual products.
Add collections — adds every active product in the collections you pick.
Add all products — your entire catalog.

Products you've already added are skipped, so you can't accidentally spend your allowance twice on the same item.

How long does indexing take?

A few seconds per product. Bulk jobs run in the background, so you can close the app and come back later. The status column updates on its own.

What do the statuses mean?

Indexed — done and live on your storefront.
In progress — the AI is working on it.
Generation failed — something went wrong. Open the product and hit regenerate.
Draft — the knowledge base is saved but too thin to publish. Add more content and it goes live.

Why is a product saved as a draft instead of going live?

There wasn't enough text to work with. This usually happens on products with a very short description or none at all. The AI can't answer questions about a product it knows nothing about, so instead of guessing, the app holds it back. Add a description to the product (or write the knowledge base yourself in the app) and it will publish.

Can I edit what the AI generated?

Yes. Open any product in the app and you can edit the description, sections, specs, FAQ and the suggested questions by hand. Your edits are saved as-is and used for answers.

What happens when I change a product in Shopify?

If you change the title, description, vendor or product type, the app marks that product as out of date so you know its knowledge base needs a refresh. Changes to tags, price, inventory, images or status don't trigger this, since they don't affect the answers.

Does re-indexing cost me another generation?

Yes. Every index or regenerate run counts as one AI generation against your monthly allowance.

Can I remove a product from the widget?

Yes. Delete its knowledge base from the app. The widget stops showing on that product page straight away.

---

The widget

Can I change how the widget looks?

Yes, all of it from the theme editor. You can set:

Logo or icon in the header
Heading and description text
Primary colour, text colour, background, muted background, border colour
Border width and corner radius
Font (theme font, sans-serif, serif or monospace)
Internal padding and maximum width
Whether suggested questions are all shown at once or rotate one at a time

The defaults follow your theme, so it fits in without any work.

Where can I put the widget?

Anywhere on the product page. It's a standard theme block, so you place it like any other.

Does it slow down my product pages?

No. The widget is rendered with the page rather than drawn in by JavaScript afterwards, so there's no blank flash and no layout jump while the page loads.

Will it show on pages other than products?

No. It's built for product pages and needs a specific product's knowledge base to work.

---

AI providers and in-store chat

Which AIs can shoppers use?

Your store AI — answers appear inside the widget, using only your product knowledge base.
ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok — the question opens in that app with the product details attached.
Copy prompt — copies the question and product details so the shopper can paste them anywhere.

You choose which of these appear, and which one is selected by default when the widget loads. Settings → Manage providers.

What's the difference between store AI and the others?

Your store AI answers in the widget, on your page, using only your product data. The shopper never leaves.

The others hand the question off to an external AI app. Those answers come from that AI's own knowledge, not your knowledge base, and they aren't logged as conversations in your app.

Can I rename my store AI?

Yes, on any paid plan. Call it AcmeGPT, or whatever suits your brand. On the free plan it shows as "Arus AI".

Can the AI make things up about my products?

It's built specifically to avoid that. The store AI is told to answer only from your knowledge base, and never to guess at specs, prices, materials, sizes, stock, shipping times, discounts or return policies. If the answer isn't in the knowledge base, it says it doesn't have that detail and points the shopper to you.

It also stays on the product it's attached to. Questions about other products, other stores, or anything unrelated get a polite decline.

What if a shopper tries to misuse the chat?

The AI treats everything a shopper types as a question, not as an instruction. Attempts to change its role, get it to ignore its rules, or use it as a general-purpose chatbot won't work.

There are also limits in place: 500 characters per message, 100 messages per conversation, and rate limits per shopper and per store to stop abuse.

Does the shopper's conversation carry over?

Yes. If a shopper comes back to the same product page, their earlier conversation is still there. This works for logged-in customers and for anonymous visitors on the same device.

---

Questions and conversations

Where can I see what shoppers are asking?

The Questions page. It lists every question asked across all your products and updates on its own.

What's in that list?

The question, the product, who asked, which AI it went to, how many times it's been asked, and the date. Identical questions on the same product are grouped into one row with a count, so the list stays readable.

Can I search and filter it?

Yes — search across questions, shoppers and products, filter by which AI was used or by shopper name, and sort by date, times asked, product or question.

Can I see who asked?

If the shopper was logged in, you'll see their name and can click through to their customer page in Shopify. Anonymous shoppers show as anonymous.

Why should I care about this list?

It's a direct read on what your product pages aren't answering. A question asked twenty times is usually a gap in your description worth fixing.

---

Analytics

What does the app track?

On the home page you'll see:

Daily widget impressions over the last 30 days
Which AI providers shoppers are choosing, as a share of total clicks
Your top products by impressions

Does this track personal shopper information?

No. Impression and click events record the store, the product and the provider. No names, no emails, no identifiers.

---

Plans, billing and limits

What are the plans?

|------|-------|----------------|------------|

Every plan includes widget customisation and all AI providers. Free gets email support; paid plans get live chat support.

Is there a free trial?

Yes, 7 days on every paid plan.

What counts as an "AI generation"?

One indexing run on one product. Indexing a new product costs one, regenerating it costs one, regenerating just its questions costs one.

What counts as an "AI reply"?

One answer from your store AI to a shopper in the widget. Questions sent out to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or Grok don't count, because we aren't generating those answers.

Is there a limit on how many products I can have?

No. Plans are based on how much AI work you use, not how big your catalog is.

When does my usage reset?

At the start of each month.

What happens if I run out?

Indexing pauses until your allowance resets, or until you upgrade. The widget keeps working on everything you've already indexed.

If you run out of AI replies, the store AI stops answering for the rest of the month. Your other providers keep working normally.

What does "unlimited" mean on the Pro plan?

Practically unlimited for a normal store. There's a fair-use ceiling in the background to stop abuse, but ordinary use will never come close to it.

How do I upgrade or downgrade?

Plan & billing in the app. Charges go through Shopify and appear on your regular Shopify bill.

What happens if I cancel?

You move to the Free plan. Paid features and the higher limits stay active until the end of your current billing period. Your indexed products aren't deleted.

---

Data and privacy

What data does the app store?

Your product knowledge bases, your app settings, your usage counts, shopper conversations with your store AI, and anonymous widget events.

How are shopper conversations handled?

For logged-in customers, conversations are linked to their Shopify customer record. For anonymous shoppers, they're tied to a random device ID stored in their browser, which isn't linked to any real identity.

Are you GDPR compliant?

Yes. The app handles Shopify's mandatory customer data request, customer redaction and shop redaction webhooks. When a customer asks for their data or asks to be deleted, we surface or erase everything we hold on them.

What happens to my data if I uninstall?

Access is cut off immediately. Your knowledge bases and settings are kept for a short window, so if you reinstall within a couple of days you land back on your indexed catalog instead of starting over. After that, Shopify tells us to delete everything, and we do.

Does my product data get used to train AI models?

No. Your product content is sent to the AI only to generate your knowledge base and answer your shoppers' questions.

---

Troubleshooting

The widget isn't appearing.

Check that the block is added in your theme editor and that the product is indexed. The app home page has a live check that tells you whether the widget is actually installed on your theme.

A product failed to index.

Open that product in the app and hit regenerate. If it keeps failing, the product may not have enough content to work with — add a description and try again.

The AI says it doesn't know something about my product.

That means the detail isn't in the knowledge base. This is on purpose: it won't guess. Add the detail to your Shopify product description and re-index, or edit the knowledge base directly in the app.

The AI's answers feel wrong or off-brand.

Open the product in the app and edit the knowledge base by hand. Whatever you write is what the AI answers from.

I changed my theme and the widget disappeared.

Theme blocks don't carry over between themes. Add the block again to your new theme.

A shopper says the chat stopped responding.

Most likely one of three things: your monthly reply allowance has run out, they sent too many messages too quickly, or that conversation has hit its message limit. The first two clear up on their own — the allowance at the start of the month, the rate limit within a minute.

---

Support

How do I get help?

Email support@aruslabs.co. Paid plans also get live chat support inside the app.

Can you help me set the app up?

Yes. Get in touch and we'll walk you through it or set it up for you.