Build your first AI agent in minutes

This guide walks you through building your first Chatbase AI agent: you create it, train it on your website or documents, test its answers in the Playground, and add it to your website as a Chat Bubble. It’s written for anyone setting up Chatbase for the first time, and the only technical step is pasting an embed code into your site (or using the WordPress plugin or the Shopify integration). When you finish, your AI agent answers your visitors’ questions from your own content. Here’s what you’ll do:

Create & Train Your AI Agent

Set up a new AI agent and train it using your website or documents

Test & Optimize

Use the Playground to test responses and fine-tune performance

Deploy to your Website

Add your AI agent to your website with a simple embed code

Estimated time: a few minutes from start to finish

Before you start

You’ll need an active Chatbase account to follow this guide. Sign up here if you haven’t already.

Step 1: Create & train your AI agent

Navigate to your dashboard

After signing into your Chatbase account, go to your main dashboard. Click the New AI Agent button to get started.

The New AI Agent button on the Chatbase dashboard

Choose your training data

The first screen asks How would you like to train your AI Agent? Enter your website under Your website (recommended), and Chatbase extracts information from all pages on that domain. To add files, text, Q&A, or Notion pages, click Add another source under Other sources. You must add at least one source before you can click Continue.

The How would you like to train your AI Agent? screen, with a website field, Other sources, and Add another source

Your AI agent can learn from these source types:

Files
Text snippets
Website
Q&A
Notion

Upload your documentsTrain your AI agent on your documents.Best for: Business documents, manuals, FAQs, product information, etc.

Data Sources page with the Add Files dialog open

What to add first: the content that answers your most common customer questions, such as your FAQ, help center, pricing, shipping, and returns pages. Files need selectable text: scanned PDFs with no text layer can’t be trained on. On Shopify, add your sitemap at /sitemap.xml instead of crawling the whole store. See Data Sources for every source type and its limits.

Customize your agent’s personality

The next screen, Customize your agent’s personality, asks What will your agent do? Your answer becomes your AI agent’s instructions: describe its job and how it should behave, for example: “Answer customer questions clearly and concisely. Stay polite and professional. Escalate billing or account issues to a human agent when unsure.” To start from a template, pick one from the dropdown under the text box: Customer support, Sales agent, or Shopping assistant. The template fills in instructions you can edit. This step is optional: click Continue to skip it. You can change these instructions later in Build.

Select your tools and where you’ll deploy

Chatbase then asks two more questions. Both are optional: select what applies, or click Continue to skip.

Select the tools in your tech stack: pick the tools you use, under Actions (such as Stripe, Shopify, Cal, Calendly, Slack, and Twilio) and Helpdesk tools (such as Chatbase, Zendesk, Salesforce, Intercom, HubSpot, and Freshdesk). Chatbase notes your choices and walks you through integrating them later. You can also connect them at any time from Integrations.
Where will you be deploying your AI agents?: pick your channels, such as the Chat Bubble, Agent page (the Help Page), Center Stage, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Shopify, Email, Slack, Zendesk, Salesforce, or Phone. You can add more channels at any time.

The Select the tools in your tech stack screen, with Actions and Helpdesk tools to choose from

The Where will you be deploying your AI agents? screen, with channels such as Chat Bubble, WhatsApp, and Phone

Training usually takes a few minutes, depending on the amount of data. You can proceed to the next step while training completes. On Build > Data Sources, each source shows Syncing while it’s processed and Synced once your AI agent can use it. A source that shows Failed lists the reason, so you can fix it and add it again.

Storage limit: Different plans have different storage limits for training data. Check your plan if you hit any limits, or add more with the Extra storage add-on.

Step 2: Test & optimize your AI agent

Access your instructions

After training your AI agent, go to Build > Instructions to refine its behavior. Use the Compare button to test your changes side by side against the current version before saving them.

Playground interface showing chat testing area

Fine-tune settings

AI Model
Instructions
Temperature

Test responses with different models

Test with different models

Ask the same questions to different models and compare:

Response quality and accuracy
Response time and speed
Tone and personality
Handling of edge cases

Make your decision

Based on the comparison, select the model that best fits your specific use case and brand voice.

For detailed model comparisons and advanced testing strategies, see the Compare area and the models comparison page.

Try it in the Playground

Open the Playground and ask your AI agent the questions your customers ask most. Include at least one question your content doesn’t cover, so you can see how your AI agent handles a gap. A good first test looks like this:

Visitor: Do you ship to Canada?
AI agent: Yes, we ship to Canada. Orders usually arrive within 5 to 7 business days.

Visitor: Can I pay with cryptocurrency?
AI agent: I'm sorry, but I don't have enough information to answer that. You can reach our team at support@example.com.

The first answer comes from your Data Sources. The second shows the AI agent admitting a gap instead of guessing, which is what you want for anything it wasn’t trained on. If it guesses, tighten your instructions. If it says it doesn’t know something your content does cover, check that the source is Synced and that the page contains readable text.

Saving puts your changes in a draft. Your customers see them once you click Publish in the top-right corner. A few settings go live as soon as you save. See Drafts and versions.

The Playground always uses your draft, so you can try changes there before you publish. Data Sources are the exception: new and edited sources go live as soon as they finish syncing. See Drafts and versions.

Step 3: Deploy to your website

Navigate to the Channels section

Once you’re satisfied with your AI agent’s responses, it’s time to make it live. Navigate to the Channels tab in the sidebar, and click Setup on the Chat Bubble card to access your AI agent’s script.

Disabled vs Enabled: Disabled AI agents are only accessible to workspace members. Enabled AI agents can be embedded on websites and accessed by anyone with the link.

Choose your deployment method

Chatbase offers multiple deployment methods including Chat Bubble, Help Page, and integrations with Email, Phone, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Shopify, and other platforms. In this guide we’ll use the Chat Bubble option, as it’s the most common. Click Manage under the Chat Bubble, then select Deploy to access your embed script.

Website widget (Recommended)
Website iframe

Add code to your website

Locate your site's HTML

Find where you can add JavaScript code to your website. This is usually in the <head> section or before the closing </body> tag.

For fast loading: Place the script just before the closing </body> tag so your page content loads first, then the chat widget appears.For immediate availability: Place the script in the <head> section to load the chat widget as early as possible, though this may slightly delay your page’s initial render.

Paste the code

Copy and paste the embed script into your website’s HTML. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, there’s usually a “Custom HTML” or “Scripts” section.

Save and publish

Save your changes and publish your website updates.

Using a site builder? There’s a step-by-step guide for WordPress, Webflow, Wix, Weebly, Framer, Bubble, and Vercel.

Verify installation

Visit your website and look for the Chat Bubble. Click it to test the integration.

Success! Your AI agent is now live and ready to help your website visitors.

Need more control over your widget? See the Developer Guides for the JavaScript embed, widget control options, and advanced features like client-side Custom Actions and event listeners.

Customize appearance (optional)

Want to match your brand? See the guide to Chat Bubble display settings.

Branding Options

Upload custom Chat Bubble icon
Change bubble colors to match your brand
Customize welcome messages
Set initial questions users can click

Behavior Settings

Auto-open chat after delay
Collect user feedback

What a good first AI agent looks like

Your first AI agent doesn’t need every feature. Before you share it with customers, check that:

Every source on Build > Data Sources shows Synced, and none show Failed.
Your Data Sources answer the questions customers ask you most.
Your instructions say who the AI agent works for, what it helps with, and what to say when it doesn’t know the answer. See Instructions.
You’ve asked it real customer questions in the Playground, including one it shouldn’t be able to answer.
There’s a way to reach a person, such as the Escalations Action or a support email in its instructions.
You’ve clicked Publish, so your instructions and settings are live.
The Chat Bubble appears on your live website and answers a test message.
Someone on your team will read the first conversations in Activity and correct wrong answers.

Common first-day mistakes

Mistake	What happens	Fix
Saving changes without publishing	The Playground shows your new instructions, but your website still uses the old ones	Click Publish in the top-right corner. See Drafts and versions.
Training on scanned PDFs or image-heavy pages	The AI agent can’t answer from them, because Chatbase reads text only	Upload files with selectable text, or paste the content as a text snippet
Turning off the Chat Bubble’s Visibility	The Chat Bubble is hidden and messages don’t reach your AI agent	Turn Visibility back on in the Chat Bubble’s Overview tab. See Channels.
Restricting embedding to specific domains, but leaving out your site	Browsers refuse to show the AI agent on your website	Add your site under Only allow embedding the agent on specific domains. See Deploy button.
No instruction for unknown questions	The AI agent may answer outside your content	Tell it to answer only from its training data and give it a fallback reply. See Best Practices.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my AI agent say it doesn't know the answer?

Your AI agent answers from its Data Sources, so it says it doesn’t know when the answer isn’t in that content, or when it can’t read the content. Check that:

The source shows Synced on Build > Data Sources, not Syncing or Failed.
The page or file contains readable text. Chatbase can’t read images, videos, or scanned PDFs, and some websites block crawlers.
The page wasn’t skipped. For a website, open the source and check the Not found and Excluded tabs.

To fill a gap quickly, add a text snippet or a Q&A with the answer. You can also open the conversation in Activity and use Revise Answer, which saves your corrected answer as a Q&A.

How long does training take?

Training usually takes a few minutes, depending on the amount of data. Each source trains on its own: it shows Syncing while it’s processed and Synced once your AI agent can use it. There’s no retrain button, so you can keep working while it finishes.

Do I need to retrain my AI agent when I update my website?

Edits you make in Chatbase, such as changing a text snippet or Q&A, apply on their own. For changes made outside Chatbase, click Resync now on the website or Notion source. Basic, Business, Enterprise, and legacy Pro plans can turn on Auto-resync, which re-reads your websites, Notion pages, and tickets every week.

Why don't my changes show up on my website?

Changes to instructions, the model, Actions, and channel settings are saved to a draft. The Playground shows the draft, but your website keeps using the live AI agent until you click Publish. See Drafts and versions.

Why isn't the Chat Bubble showing on my website?

Check that you pasted the complete script, that the Chat Bubble’s Visibility toggle is on, and that your site’s domain is allowed if you restricted embedding to specific domains. Caching plugins and ad blockers can also hide it, so try a private browser window. See the FAQ for more checks.

Next steps

You’ve created, trained, tested, and deployed your first AI agent. From here:

Best Practices

Proven ways to improve your AI agent’s answers: instructions, data sources, and the right model.

Actions

Add escalations, lead capture, appointment booking, and more.

Integrations

Connect your AI agent to messaging channels and business tools.

Analytics

Track conversations and optimize your AI agent’s performance.

Need help? Visit our Help Center or check the FAQ for common questions.

Quick Start

AI Agent Management

Analytics & Monitoring

Outbound

Workspace Management

Security & Compliance

Integrations

AI Performance & Quality

Helpdesk

Chatbase Experts

Build your first AI agent in minutes

Before you start