The Ask AI feature lets visitors type questions in your widget and receive AI-generated answers based on your published articles. Instead of searching and reading through articles manually, visitors get concise, direct answers with links to the relevant sources.
How It Works
When a visitor types a question in the Ask AI tab, the system sends their question along with the content of your published articles to an AI model. The AI reads through your articles and composes a helpful answer, citing the specific articles it drew from. Visitors see the answer along with clickable source links.
Requirements
To use Ask AI, you need two things:
- An AI provider key — Open Settings > AI Settings in your dashboard, choose your preferred provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or xAI), and enter your API key.
- Published articles — The AI uses your published articles as its knowledge base. The more comprehensive your articles are, the better the answers will be.
Helpdesky does not charge overage fees. If you connect your own AI provider key, usage is billed separately by that provider. We recommend setting a spending cap in your AI provider account and regularly monitoring your usage and spending there.
If you see No AI key configured, add a provider key under Settings > AI Settings before looking for the Ask AI control.
Enabling and Disabling
Once you have an AI key configured, the Ask AI tab appears in your widget automatically. You can control this with the Show Ask AI tab in widget toggle in the AI Q&A section under Embeds > Widget.
- Enabled — Visitors see both a Search tab and an Ask AI tab in the widget.
- Disabled — The Ask AI tab is hidden. Visitors can still search articles; the Message tab may also remain visible if messaging is enabled.
This is useful if you want to offer the widget for article search only, or if you want to temporarily disable AI answering without removing your API key.
What Visitors See
When Ask AI is active, visitors see the following tabs at the top of the widget: Search and Ask AI. In the Ask AI tab, there is a text input where they can type any question. After submitting, they see a loading indicator followed by the AI-generated answer with source article links below it.
Tips for Better Answers
- Write clear, detailed articles — the AI can only answer based on what you have published.
- Use descriptive headings and organize content logically so the AI can find relevant information quickly.
- Cover common questions in your articles to ensure the AI has good source material.