Documentation

AI Chatbot

How the brand's AI agent and its chat workflows appear in the widget — streaming conversations, interactive actions, real-time data fetching, and product recommendations from the visitor's perspective.

Overview

The Yaplet widget shows visitors two conversational experiences: the brand's AI agent (Vex) for free-form conversations, and chat workflows for guided, step-by-step interactions. Both run inside the same chat interface and can hand off to each other or to a human agent.

Both belong to the brand, not to the widget. A brand has at most one Vex AI agent, at Brand → (your brand) → Vex, and its chat workflows live at Brand → (your brand) → Workflows. There is nothing to attach to the widget — the brand owns the widget and the AI alike.

This section covers the visitor-facing experience in the widget. For setting them up, see Vex and Custom Workflows.

What's Inside

AI Conversations

Streaming AI responses, conversation starters, and the agent handoff toggle — the core AI chat experience visitors interact with.

Workflow Interactions

Buttons, data collection forms, links, and other interactive elements visitors encounter during guided workflows.

AI Data & Products

Context tool forms for fetching real-time data and product recommendation carousels that appear during AI conversations.

Two Conversational Experiences

AI Agent (Vex)

The AI agent handles open-ended conversations. Visitors type questions in natural language and receive streamed answers drawn from the brand's knowledge — its help articles, documentation, uploaded files, website pages and question-and-answer entries. The AI can also pull in real-time data from external APIs and recommend products.

Key visitor-facing features:

  • Streaming responses — answers appear word by word in real time
  • Conversation starters — suggested topic buttons before the first message
  • Product carousels — horizontal scrollable product cards embedded in responses
  • Context tool forms — data collection forms that appear when the AI needs external information

Chat Workflows

Chat workflows guide visitors through predefined conversation paths. Instead of free-form chat, visitors interact with structured elements like buttons, forms, and decision trees. Workflows can start automatically on conditions like keywords, page visits, or visitor properties, or be started manually.

Key visitor-facing features:

  • Buttons — multiple-choice options that branch the conversation
  • Data collection — inline forms for gathering specific information
  • Forms — full multi-field form overlays
  • Links — automatic redirects to external pages

How They Work Together

Visitors experience both inside the same chat window — there's no visual break when switching between them:

  • A workflow can hand off to the AI using an AI Bot action, seamlessly transitioning from guided steps to free-form conversation
  • A workflow can trigger another workflow using a Custom Bot action, chaining multiple flows together
  • The AI can trigger workflows when it detects specific visitor intents
  • Both can escalate to a human agent when a person is needed
A workflow belongs to exactly one brand. It can run in the chat widget, in Facebook and Instagram conversations and on phone calls — but the steps it contains decide which of those it is actually eligible for. A workflow holding a form never runs on Facebook or Instagram, and one holding a form, a link, buttons, a reply-time, a request-agent, a collect-data or an ask-question step never runs on a call. The Channels column on the Workflows screen shows the answer for each of your own workflows. To reuse one on a second brand, use Copy to another brand there; the same workflow cannot be attached to two brands.

From the visitor's perspective, this all feels like a single, continuous conversation.