AI chatbots for business: how they work, RAG and getting started
How does a business AI chatbot answer from your own documents? Retrieval-augmented generation, sources, security, metrics and the steps to launch one.
5 min read
AI chatbots and assistants · Ajaccio, Corsica
Custom AI chatbot and assistant development
A well-built AI chatbot answers from your own content, not from guesswork. Step By Step, a studio in Ajaccio, Corsica, develops assistants for your website or your team: they find the information in your documents, write a clear answer and always cite their sources.
- AI assistant
- RAG
- Website
- Internal
Uses
AI chatbot: four ways to put it to work
An AI chatbot is first and foremost a way to make information accessible: to your customers on your website and to your team internally. These are the four uses we build most often.
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Website assistant
Answers visitors’ questions about your offers, terms or procedures in their own language, and points them to the right form or contact.
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Internal assistant
Your team queries procedures, technical notes and document templates in plain language instead of digging through ten shared folders.
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Support and help desk
An instant first answer to routine requests, with the full conversation handed to a person whenever the question calls for it.
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Onboarding new starters
An assistant that knows your organisation, tools and ways of working, available at any time while people settle in.
Technology
How does an AI assistant answer from your documents?
A reliable AI assistant is built on retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG: it first retrieves the useful passages from your content, then writes its answer from those alone. The process runs in four stages.
- 1
Gathering content
Website pages, office documents, PDFs, knowledge base or product sheets: together we decide which sources are authoritative.
- 2
Splitting and indexing
Content is split into coherent passages and indexed so it can be found by meaning, not just by exact wording.
- 3
Retrieving what matters
For each question, the assistant finds the handful of most relevant passages and passes them to the language model.
- 4
A sourced answer
The model writes its answer from those passages alone and shows links to the original documents.
Comparison
Scripted chatbot or AI chatbot: what changes
Older chatbots followed hand-written decision trees. An AI chatbot understands the question as it is asked and looks for the answer in your content: it covers far more cases and stays current as your documents are updated.
| Criterion | Scripted chatbot | AI chatbot (RAG) |
|---|---|---|
| Where answers come from | Scripts and replies written in advance | Your documents, searched for each question |
| Unexpected questions | “Sorry, I didn’t understand” | An answer if the information exists, otherwise a clear admission |
| Keeping it current | Rewrite the scripts | Update the source documents |
| Languages | One version per language | Replies in the language of the question |
| Verifiability | Low | Every answer cites its sources |
Quality and compliance
An AI assistant you can trust
An AI assistant speaks for your brand with every answer. We build it to stay accurate, transparent and respectful of personal data, and we test it before it goes public.
- Answers limited to approved sources, with links to the documents
- A clear “I don’t know” when the information is missing, never an invented answer
- An explicit notice that users are talking to an AI, as the AI Act requires
- Personal data minimised, with retention defined and documented (GDPR)
- A reference question set re-run after every change
- Hand-off to a person, with the full conversation history
Method
The stages of building your AI chatbot
Building an AI chatbot starts with choosing the authoritative sources and ends with tracking the questions it could not answer, which guides how your content is enriched.
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Scope and sources
Which audience, which questions, which documents are authoritative, and what the assistant must decline to handle.
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Prototype
A first assistant connected to a sample of your content and tested by your team with real questions.
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Evaluation
A reference set of questions measures accuracy, the quality of cited sources and how well instructions are followed.
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Launch and follow-up
Go-live, a log of unanswered questions to enrich your content, and regular fine-tuning.
First call on us
An AI assistant for your website or your team?
Tell us which questions it should handle and which content it should rely on: we will get back to you within one working day.
Artificial intelligence
Our other artificial intelligence services
- AI agents AI agents that carry out multi-step tasks in your tools, under human control.
- AI automation Emails, documents, data entry: repetitive tasks handed over to AI.
- AI integration Large language models connected to your software, CRM or ERP.
- Website creation Fast, well-ranked showcase websites that are easy to evolve.
Blog
Further reading: our articles on the topic
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about AI chatbots
What is an AI chatbot?
An AI chatbot is a conversational assistant that understands freely worded questions and replies in natural language thanks to a large language model. Done well, it answers from your own content rather than its general knowledge, and shows where each piece of information comes from.
How do you stop the chatbot making things up?
By making it answer only from the passages retrieved from your documents (the RAG approach), asking it to cite its sources and to say plainly when the information does not exist, then measuring that behaviour against a reference set of questions before launch.
Can the chatbot reply in several languages?
Yes. Today’s language models understand and write in many languages, so the assistant can reply in English, French, Italian or German from documents written in a single language.
Do users have to be told they are talking to an AI?
Yes. The EU AI Act requires people to be informed when they are interacting with an AI system. Our assistants say so clearly and always offer a way to reach a person.
Are conversations stored?
Only when it is useful and planned for: retention period, hosting and who has access are defined in the project, in line with the GDPR. Conversations are mainly used to spot unanswered questions so your content can be improved.
Can the chatbot connect to our software?
Yes. The assistant can look something up in your software (an order status, availability) or open a request. As soon as it acts on your tools it becomes closer to an AI agent and gets the same guardrails: limited rights and approval of sensitive actions.