AI assistant
for business
An AI assistant for business understands questions written any way a customer likes and answers from your own material: service pages, price lists, policies, course schedules. Unlike a generic chatbot, it's told exactly what it may talk about, what it must never promise and when to call you in.
Free: a 30-minute call, an action plan and a price range in writing.
What makes an AI assistant
safe to put in front of customers
A language model on its own will happily invent an answer. These guardrails keep it useful and honest.
A defined knowledge base
It answers from documents you approve, not from the open internet.
Topics it refuses
Medical, legal or financial advice, discounts, guarantees and anything outside your services.
'I don't know' is allowed
When the answer isn't in your material, it says so and offers a person.
Prices from your list
Ranges and fixed prices only as written in your price list, never estimated by the model.
Conversation logs
Every chat saved for review, so you can see what was asked and correct the material.
Building an AI assistant
in 5 steps
Built with a trusted partner; the agreement, deadlines and your contact person stay with me.
Collect the material
Your FAQ, service descriptions, price list, policies and the questions customers really ask.
Write the rules
Tone, topics, forbidden answers and hand-off triggers, written as a short policy you approve.
Build and connect
The assistant set up on your site or messenger, with leads going to your inbox or CRM.
Stress test
We try trick questions, angry customers, other languages and off-topic requests.
Review and improve
Weekly log reviews at first, updating the material where answers were weak.
AI assistant
pricing
Final prices in Canadian dollars. The AI model's usage is billed to your account and depends on how many conversations it handles.
One assistant on one main channel, trained on your material.
- Knowledge base setup
- Rules and guardrails
- Hand-off to a person
- Lead delivery to email or CRM
- Launch reviews
For owners who want to understand AI options before committing.
- Your use case reviewed
- Honest yes or no
What an AI assistant for business can and can't do
An AI assistant for business is a chatbot that understands free text instead of relying only on buttons. A customer can type 'do you do weekend lessons for adults who already speak a bit of French?' and get a sensible answer, even though no button says exactly that. For businesses with many services, detailed conditions or customers who ask in unpredictable ways, that flexibility is the main benefit.
The limits are just as important. A language model predicts plausible text; it doesn't know your business unless you tell it, and it can sound sure while being wrong. So an assistant is useful for answering factual questions from your material, guiding people to the right service and collecting details for a follow-up. It's not the right tool for giving advice, negotiating prices or making decisions about a customer.
How it learns your business
The assistant doesn't need to be 'trained' in the technical sense. Instead, it's given a knowledge base: your service descriptions, price list, policies, opening hours, FAQ, course schedules, delivery zones. When a question arrives, the system finds the relevant pieces and asks the model to answer using only those. This approach keeps answers close to your own words and makes updates easy: change the document and the next answer reflects it.
The quality of the answers depends on the quality of that material. A lot of businesses discover gaps the moment they write it down: the refund policy was never written, the service area is described three different ways. Fixing those gaps improves the assistant and your website at the same time.
Guardrails I put in place
- Scope. The assistant talks about your services and nothing else. Off-topic requests get a polite redirect.
- No invented numbers. Prices, timelines and availability come from your documents or a connected system, never from the model's imagination.
- Sensitive topics. For clinics, law firms or financial advisors, the assistant explains services but doesn't give personal advice, and it discourages customers from typing health or financial details.
- Honest identity. It says it's an automated assistant.
- Hand-off. On request, on uncertainty or on frustration, it offers a person and passes the conversation along.
Where it lives
An AI assistant can run as a website chatbot, inside Instagram and Messenger, on WhatsApp or Telegram. Many businesses combine approaches: buttons for the common paths, AI for open questions. For support-heavy businesses, it's often the core of a customer service chatbot. Leads and conversations can go to your inbox or CRM, so nothing ends in the chat window.
Privacy and Canadian rules
Conversations are processed by the AI provider, usually on servers outside Canada. Under PIPEDA you should be open about that in your privacy policy and choose a provider with business terms that protect customer data. Quebec's Law 25 adds a duty to inform people when a decision about them is made exclusively by automated processing, one more reason to keep the assistant in an informing role while people make decisions. If the assistant collects contact details for marketing, CASL consent applies to any follow-up messages.
Costs and delivery
The setup price is $2,500 in Canadian dollars. Running costs depend on how many conversations the assistant handles; for most small businesses they're modest, billed by the AI provider to your account. I deliver AI assistants with a trusted partner, while the brief, rules, agreement, deadlines and support stay with me. My article on AI assistants for small business covers realistic use cases in more depth. If you're not sure where to start, a free consultation with your list of real customer questions is the best test.
Read next
AI assistant
questions
Will the AI assistant make things up?
Language models can produce confident wrong answers, which is why the setup matters more than the model. The assistant answers only from your approved material, is instructed to say 'I don't know' when the answer isn't there, and never states prices or promises beyond your written list. Logs are reviewed after launch to catch weak spots early.
Am I responsible for what the assistant says?
In practice, yes. Customers treat the assistant as your business speaking. In 2024 a British Columbia tribunal held a large airline liable for incorrect policy information given by its website chatbot. That's why I keep assistants to factual questions about your services and route anything with consequences to a person.
Is customer data sent to the AI provider?
The text of the conversation is processed by the AI model's provider, usually outside Canada. Reputable providers offer business terms that limit how data is used. Your privacy policy should mention it, and the assistant should discourage customers from sharing sensitive details such as health or financial information in chat.
Which AI model do you use?
It depends on the job, the languages and the budget. Several major providers offer models that work well for customer questions. The choice affects cost per conversation and answer quality, so we decide on the call. The account is set up in your name.
Can it answer in French and other languages?
Modern models usually reply in the language the customer writes in, so the assistant may answer in French on its own. I build and check assistants in English, and can check Polish, Russian and Ukrainian myself; French content and checking French answers are outside my work. For Quebec customers, French answers should be as complete as English ones, so a French knowledge base and its review would come from your own team or translator.
Let's test it on
your real questions
Send me twenty questions customers asked you last month. On a free 30-minute call I'll show how an assistant would answer them and where it should hand off.