AI & automation
What information should a website assistant use?
Define approved sources, unanswered questions and handoff rules before letting an assistant speak for your business.
A website assistant should answer from information the business has approved and can keep current. If the answer is missing or uncertain, it should say so and offer a route to a person. A fluent response is not a substitute for an accurate service description or a real availability check.
This is a design guide for a proposed assistant. This site does not claim to have a deployed customer-facing AI assistant.
Build an approved-source list
Start with the questions visitors actually ask. For each, name the source that may answer it and who owns updates. A simple inventory could look like this:
| Visitor question | Approved source | Update owner | Assistant boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which services do you offer? | Current service pages. | Business owner. | Summarise and link to the relevant page. |
| What does a plan cost? | Current pricing page and agreed terms. | Business owner. | State published prices with a link; flag extras as proposal-specific. |
| Can you start next week? | No public availability source. | Business owner. | Do not promise a date; offer an enquiry route. |
| What happened on a past project? | Approved public case study. | Project owner. | Describe only published facts, not private client records. |
For example, an assistant for a gardening business could point to its approved service and coverage pages. It should not infer that a particular garden is within the service area from a vague town name or promise that a visit is available next week. If the source does not answer, it can help the visitor send a clear enquiry instead.
Keep the unanswered-question path useful
An assistant needs a response for “I do not have enough information.” It can ask one clarifying question, show the relevant page or help prepare an enquiry for a person. It should not hide uncertainty with a plausible guess. If a visitor asks about a private account, payment or complaint, a general public website assistant should hand off to the right secure process.
Test with questions the approved material cannot answer: “Can you guarantee my site will rank first?”, “Can you deliver by Friday?” and “What did you charge another customer?” The useful answer identifies the limit and the next step. It does not invent a result, slot or private quote.
Treat content updates as maintenance
When a price, service area or term changes, update the authoritative source and check the assistant's answer. Keep a record of which source version was used for important responses, if the workflow requires that level of traceability. Decide who reviews failed or uncertain answers and how corrections reach the source material.
The automation service includes the idea of a knowledge assistant using approved business information. The first piece of work is choosing that information and its owner, not adding a chat box.
Put the thinking into practice
Make the next step clearer.
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