The storefront widget

Choose which AI providers shoppers can use

Go to Settings → Manage providers. Tick the AIs you want offered in the widget and untick the rest. 📷 The Settings page showing the provider checkboxes and the default provider dropdown. The options Arus AI answers inside the widget, so the shopper stays on your product page. Paid plans only. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Grok each open in a new tab with the question already filled in. Manual (copy prompt) copies the question to the clipboard so the shopper can paste it wherever they like. How the external providers get it right They don't just get the bare question. The app builds a prompt containing the product, the shopper's question, and a link to a public JSON file with that product's knowledge base in it. That's what makes ChatGPT answer about your actual product instead of guessing from the name. None of these cost you anything, since the answer is generated on their side rather than yours. The default provider Settings → Default AI provider decides which one is selected when the widget loads. Most shoppers never change it, so this matters more than the list itself. Only enabled providers can be the default. If you switch off whichever one was your default, it falls back to Arus AI if that's available, otherwise to the first one still enabled. Which ones to turn on Turning on all six isn't the best default — a row of six logos is just a decision you've handed to the shopper. On a paid plan, use Arus AI as the default with one or two external options for people who prefer them. On the free plan, ChatGPT is a sensible default, since Arus AI is locked and the handoffs cost you nothing.

Arus AI — answering shoppers inside your store

Every other provider answers by sending the shopper somewhere else. Arus AI answers in the widget, on your product page, from that product's knowledge base. Because it runs on your side, each reply comes out of your monthly AI replies allowance. It needs a paid plan. 📷 The widget mid-conversation, with a shopper question and an Arus AI answer visible. How it behaves It answers from the knowledge base of the product being viewed, and it's instructed to stay on that product rather than give general shopping advice. It remembers the conversation, so follow-ups like "and in blue?" work properly. If a product has no knowledge base it says so instead of inventing an answer. Turning it on Settings → Manage providers → Arus AI (Instant answers in-store chat), then set it as your Default AI provider so shoppers get it without having to choose. On the free plan the option is there but locked. Renaming it On a paid plan, Settings → Store AI name lets you call it whatever you want — AcmeGPT, Ask Nadia, your brand name. The name shows up in the widget and in your Questions list. On the free plan it's always called Arus AI. If you set a custom name and later downgrade, the widget goes back to the default rather than showing a name you're no longer paying for. Upgrade again and your name comes back. Reading the conversations Arus AI conversations show up in Questions with the full transcript. Shoppers who were logged in link through to their Shopify customer record; everyone else shows as an anonymous visitor. See See what shoppers are asking.

Customize the widget's look

All the styling lives on the block itself. Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize, click the Ask Any AI block on your product template, and the settings appear in the panel on the right. Whatever you change applies to the widget on every product page. 📷 The theme editor with the Ask Any AI block selected and the settings panel. Header Logo / icon is shown in the widget header. Leave it empty to use the default mark. Heading defaults to "Ask Any AI". Description is the line underneath, defaulting to "Ask questions to any AI". Predefined questions Layout is either Show all (stacked) or One at a time (auto-rotating). See Predefined questions. Appearance | Setting | Default | | --------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | | Primary color — buttons, selected chips, highlights | #303030 | | Text on primary | #ffffff | | Background | #ffffff | | Input / muted background | #f7f7f7 | | Text | #000000 | | Muted text | #6b6b6b | | Border / outline | #ebebeb | | Border width | 1px (range 0–4) | | Corner radius | 0px (range 0–32) | | Font | Theme font, or system sans-serif / serif / monospace | | Internal padding | 0 = responsive default (range 0–48px) | | Maximum width | 0 = fill the column (range 0–900px) | Getting it to fit your theme Two settings do most of the work: set Primary color to whatever your buttons use, and Corner radius to match them. That's usually enough for the widget to stop looking bolted on. Leave Font on Theme font unless you've got a specific reason not to, since it inherits your store's typography and stays matched if you restyle later. Leave Maximum width and Internal padding at 0 too — both defaults are responsive, and fixed values aren't.

See what shoppers are asking

The Questions page lists every question shoppers have asked through the widget, newest first. 📷 The Questions tab with a dozen or so rows, showing the Product, Source and Shopper columns. The columns Product is the product page the question came from. Source is which AI it went to: your store AI, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, or Copy prompt. Shopper links through to the Shopify customer page if they were logged in. Everyone else shows as an anonymous visitor. Views and filters All shows everything. Chat narrows it to Arus AI conversations, which are the only ones with a full back-and-forth — the external providers hand off, and the rest of that conversation happens where you can't see it. You can also search the text and filter by source or by shopper. Why it's worth reading every week Every question here is a shopper telling you something your product page didn't say. If the same question keeps coming up on one product, put the answer in that product's description and regenerate its knowledge base. If it comes up across lots of products, it's usually a policy question — shipping, returns, sizing — and belongs somewhere global. Questions that got a weak answer usually mean a thin knowledge base, so check that product's FAQ tab. You can also see the questions for a single product on its detail page, under Questions asked.