AI chatbot

Turn it on and off in AI chatbot settings in the sidebar. Answers appear as white bubbles in the DM inbox conversation, side by side with replies written by a person.

9.1When to use it

9.2Before you start

• The AI chatbot is available on paid plans. On the free plan, the menu is locked.
• Your Instagram account must be connected to conma. (Instagram · Facebook connection)
• The chatbot won't turn on without at least one knowledge entry. The principle of this feature is that it says nothing without something to base an answer on.
• Answers sent by the chatbot can't be taken back. We recommend rereading what you wrote before turning it on.

9.3Step-by-step guide

1

Writing down knowledge

This is what the AI bases its answers on. Three methods are used together in a single list.

Method	When to use it
Write directly	Put the question in the title and the answer in the body. Fastest, and uses no credits
Upload a file	When you already have an organized document, like a customer service manual
Connect a link	For content that changes, like a website or a Google Sheet

Not sure where to start? Begin with the four conma recommended entries. We picked only ones that apply to any business.

• About: what your business does
• Support hours
• How to contact you
• Pricing and costs

When an inquiry arrives in a foreign language, the AI answers in that language. You can write knowledge in your own language only. There's no need to upload separate translations.

It's a good idea to write down how to contact you. When a customer asks directly, like "What's your phone number?", the AI can answer. If it's not written down, that question is handed off to a person.

After uploading, click ‘Start AI training’

• Files and links only become knowledge after you click this button. Uploading alone doesn't apply them.
• Before you click, you're shown how many credits it will use.

• Written entries are already in question-and-answer form, so they need no training and use no credits.

Capacity is 15,000 characters per account

• Uploads are blocked once you exceed it.
• A single customer service manual is often around 8,000 characters, so one upload can fill half the space.
• Watch the remaining capacity at the bottom of the screen as you add content. Files still in training reserve their space and show in the gauge too, and any overage is shown as is.

Image-only PDFs can't be read

• A PDF made by scanning paper or taking photos contains images, not text, so the AI can't read it.
• If you can open the PDF and select text by dragging, it's fine to upload.
• If all you have is a scan, move the content into 'Write directly'.

Be sure to check what was read

• Click 'View extracted content' on a file entry to see everything the AI actually pulled out.
• This is where you'll catch a garbled table or a missing page.
• Checking uses no credits.

Extracted content can't be edited.

If it's wrong, you have to delete that source and upload it again, and training credits are charged again. For an 8,000-character manual, re-uploading costs 40 credits. That's why it's best to check once right after uploading.

2

Setting shared messages

Two messages that go out the same way in every conversation.

• Automated reply notice: sent once per conversation as a separate message before the first answer. It discloses that AI is replying, so it can't be removed.
• Handoff message: sent when there's no answer in what you wrote down. The AI doesn't make anything up and stops here.

3

Writing AI response guidelines

Set the tone and what it shouldn't do. Click one of the three recommended entries to fill in a default sentence, then edit it.

Entry	Sentence filled in
Tone	Address customers politely, friendly but not over the top.
Inquiries to hand to a person	Don't answer refund, exchange, or complaint inquiries directly. Say that a team member will check and get back to them.
Pricing rules	Only quote prices exactly as written in the provided material. If it's not there, say a team member will check and get back to them.

Guidelines can be up to 1,000 characters. They're counted separately from knowledge, so they don't reduce your knowledge capacity. But if rules conflict with each other, the AI gets confused and hands off to a person more often, so keep them short and clear.

9.4Connecting a Google Sheet

For values that change often, like a price list or a menu, connect a sheet and it reads the current value each time an inquiry arrives. A file upload freezes at the values from the moment of upload, but a sheet reflects edits immediately.

When you paste a link, you're asked ‘Does it change often?’. How it's read depends on your choice.

How to set up your sheet

Column names in the first row, one value per cell. Those are the only two rules.

Good example

When a customer asks "Do you have the iPhone 17 Pro in black, 256GB?", it finds the row where model, color, and capacity all match and answers with that row's quantity and restock date. You don't need to decide in advance which column to answer from.

Bad example

If you cram everything into one cell as a sentence, like "iPhone 17 Pro: 2 left in black 256GB, silver sold out", the values can't be separated. Rows can't be selected by condition, so that table can't be used for answers.

There are four rules to follow.

• Fill the first row with column names. This row is read to learn what's in each column.
• Give columns recognizable names. Names like A or Column1 don't say what they contain.
• Put only one value in each cell. Multiple values in one cell, like '4,500 / 5,000', are read as is.
• Avoid empty rows and merged cells. They're read as the table ending partway through.

You can connect one live-read table per Instagram account. Connecting a new sheet asks whether to replace the existing connection. If you want both a price list and a stock list read live, put them in a single sheet.

Invite conma to your sheet

Pasting the link alone isn't enough to read it. Open Share in the top right of the sheet and add conma as a viewer. The address to add is shown on the connect screen, and you can copy it with the copy button. When connecting a private Google Doc or Slides file, invite conma the same way so it can be read.

Copy the URL with the tab you want open

If your sheet has several tabs, copy the URL while the table you want is open. That tab becomes the default.

Checking that the connection worked

When you save, a connection check screen opens. It shows three things.

Answers include a reference time

When an answer uses a value found in the table, the sentence ends with when it's accurate as of.

• The time is when the sheet was last edited. If that time can't be read, the time the inquiry arrived is used instead. Since the table is reread for every inquiry, both are valid reference points.
• It's added only to sentences that answer with a value actually found in the table. It's not added when answering from content learned from a file or website.
• It goes out in the language the customer uses.

Uploading an Excel file

Instead of a Google Sheet, you can upload an Excel file (.xlsx). The rules for building the table are the same as above. Column names in the first row, one value per cell, no empty rows or merged cells.

But it's read differently.

9.5When a person replies, the chatbot steps back

In a conversation where you've sent a reply, the AI stays out for 5 minutes from then. If the AI added something different while you were replying, the account would be saying two things to the customer at once. Click 'Resume chatbot' in the notice above the conversation to hand it back right away.

• Replies sent directly from the Instagram app also count as human replies.
• After 5 minutes, the AI answers again. This is so overnight and weekend inquiries aren't missed.
• Messages sent by auto response or winner notifications don't count as human replies.

9.6Credits

When no credits are charged

• When the inquiry is in an unsupported language
• When the handoff message went out because the sheet couldn't be read or a column was renamed
• Messages that arrive within 5 minutes after a person replied
• When an answer wasn't sent due to insufficient credits. After you top up, the inquiries that piled up in the meantime are covered together in the next answer

9.7Good to know

Answers sent by the AI are shown in the conversation. In the DM inbox they appear as white bubbles with an AI chatbot label, easy to tell apart from the blue bubbles written by a person.

It doesn't make up what it doesn't know. If there's no basis in what you wrote down, it doesn't compose an answer and sends the handoff message instead. If an answer seems not to have gone out, first check whether that content is in the knowledge.

A website link reads only the page you pasted. It doesn't follow submenus. To use several pages, paste each URL separately. When the website content changes, click reread to apply it.

9.8Wrapping up

Once you turn on the master switch, the AI answers DM inquiries from that point on. To see how it's answering, open a conversation in the DM inbox.

If an answer looks wrong, fix the knowledge and train it again. Conversations that were handed off to a person because there was no answer also stay in the DM inbox.