A ChatLab chatbot is an AI assistant that answers your visitors' questions using knowledge you give it - your website pages, documents, or question-and-answer pairs. This guide takes you from an empty account to a trained chatbot that is ready to answer on your site.
There are two ways to create a chatbot, and both end at the same place:
- Quick Setup Wizard (recommended) - point it at your website and it configures and trains the chatbot for you.
- Manual Setup - create an empty chatbot and do each step yourself.
Path A: Quick Setup Wizard (recommended)
The Wizard scans a source you choose, then walks you through a short series of screens with everything pre-filled. You review each screen, adjust anything you like, and click Continue. At every step a live preview on the right shows how your chatbot will look.
Step 1: Open the wizard
After signing in you land on the Chatbots screen, which lists every chatbot you own. Click the + New Chatbot button in the top right.
A window opens with the two ways to create a chatbot. Under Quick Setup Wizard, click Start Wizard.
Step 2: Choose where your knowledge comes from
The first screen asks how you want to give your chatbot its knowledge:
- Start with a website (recommended) - ChatLab scans your site to suggest a name, colors, logo and content.
- Start with files - upload PDF, Word, Excel or text documents.
- Start with text - paste your own text or question-and-answer pairs.
Start with a website is already selected. Leave it selected and click Continue.
Step 3: Enter your website address
Type your website address (or a sitemap URL) into the Website URL or Sitemap URL field, then click Analyze & Continue.
The analysis takes about 30 to 60 seconds. ChatLab crawls your site to detect your colors and logo and to prepare the first batch of training content. The remaining screens are pre-filled from what it finds.
Step 4: Name your chatbot
Confirm the Chatbot Name and Tagline. These appear at the top of the chat window so visitors know who they are talking to. You can also set the label shown above your suggested questions on the welcome screen. Click Continue when you are happy.
Step 5: Set the welcome message
The Welcome Message is the first thing a visitor sees when they open the chat. Keep it short and friendly - two short lines works well. This screen also lets you pick the AI model that powers your chatbot; the default is a good, low-cost choice and you can change it later. See Selecting an AI model and What is a message credit to understand the trade-offs. Click Continue.
Step 6: Add conversation starters
Suggested questions are clickable buttons that help a visitor begin. The Wizard proposes a few based on your site. Edit the Button label and the Message sent on click for each, remove any you do not want, or use Add suggested question to add your own. This step is optional - leave it empty if you prefer. Click Continue.
Step 7: Describe your chatbot's role
Here you tell the chatbot how to behave. Keep Guided (auto prompt) selected and the Wizard writes a full set of instructions for you from your role, response language and a short description of your business - shown on the right as Generated Role Instructions. Prefer to write your own? Switch to I'll write it myself. Click Continue.
Step 8: Customize the colors
The Wizard detects your brand colors from your website and applies them to the chat header, message bubbles and widget icon. Adjust any color you like, or leave the detected ones as they are - the live preview updates instantly. Click Continue.
Step 9: Choose the logo
Pick the image that appears as your chatbot's avatar:
- Use detected logo - the logo the Wizard found on your website.
- Upload your own logo - a PNG, JPG, GIF or SVG image from your computer.
- Continue without logo - use the default chatbot icon.
Click Continue after choosing.
Step 10: Training starts
Your chatbot is now created and training begins automatically in the background. You do not have to wait on this screen - ChatLab emails you when training finishes, and you can watch progress any time in the Training tab. Click Finish and track training progress to leave the wizard.
Step 11: Wait for training, then test your chatbot
You arrive at your chatbot's Overview. The Training status shows that training is still running while ChatLab reads your content, splits it into sections and builds the searchable knowledge base. For a small website this usually takes a few minutes; larger sources take longer. You do not have to stay on the page - you can keep working and you get an email when it is done.
When the status turns to Trained, your chatbot is ready to answer. This is the real finish line, so try it straight away: the panel on the right is the chat tester, a live copy of your chatbot. Type a question into Type a message... and press Enter. Your chatbot replies using only the knowledge it was trained on, exactly as a visitor would see it.
If an answer is wrong or thin, add more training data in the Training tab - see Training basics and limits.
Step 12: Add your chatbot to your website
Testing proves your chatbot works; the last step is letting real visitors use it. Adding the chatbot to your website is an essential part of creating one - open the Add to Website tab to copy a short embed snippet and paste it into your site. Full instructions are in Adding your chatbot to your website. You can do this while training is still finishing and while you fine-tune the settings below.
Path B: Manual Setup
Manual Setup does the same job as the Wizard, one step at a time and under your full control. You create an empty chatbot first, then add training and adjust settings yourself. The steps below mirror what the Wizard automates.
Step 1: Create the chatbot
Click + New Chatbot on the Chatbots screen. In the window, under Manual Setup, type a name (for example, Bakery Assistant) into the Chatbot Name field and click Create Chatbot.
Step 2: Review the empty chatbot
Your chatbot is created and you land on its Overview. Because you have not added anything yet, Training status shows No Training Yet and Avatar shows No Avatar. Everything else works the same as a wizard-built bot - you just fill it in yourself.
Step 3: Add training data
Open the Training tab. Click Add New Training: Website to point the chatbot at a website, or use the sidebar to add Files, Questions & Answers, Text, or an E-commerce catalog instead. After you start a scan, training runs in the background and the status updates when it finishes.
For the full walkthrough of each source type, see Adding new website sources, Adding files, Adding questions and answers, and Training basics and limits.
Step 4: Set the appearance and messages
Open the Settings tab to give your chatbot its look and voice - the same things the Wizard fills in automatically:
- Appearance - avatar, colors and fonts. See Selecting avatar, colors and chat icon.
- Chat Conversation - welcome message and suggested questions. See Conversation settings.
- Role & Behavior - the chatbot's personality and instructions. See Role and behavior settings.
Step 5: Test and embed
Use the chat tester on the Overview tab to try your chatbot, then grab the embed code from the Add to Website tab. See Adding your chatbot to your website.
Configure your chatbot
Whichever path you took, your chatbot works the moment it is trained - but a few settings make it feel like your own. This is the map of what is worth setting up next. Open the Settings tab and work through the ones you care about; everything here can be changed any time.
- Role & Behavior - tell your chatbot what it is and how it should answer (its tone, what to do when it does not know something). See Role and behavior settings.
- Appearance - the avatar, brand colors, fonts and chat icon your visitors see. See Selecting avatar, colors and chat icon.
- AI model - the model that powers replies, trading cost against answer quality. See Selecting an AI model.
- Chat Conversation - the welcome message that greets visitors and the suggested questions that help them start. See Conversation settings.
Then add extra capabilities as you need them:
- Lead collection - capture a visitor's name, email or phone during the chat. See Lead collection.
- Human contact form - let visitors reach a person when the chatbot cannot help. See Human support contact form.
- AI actions - let your chatbot do things, such as looking up an order or booking a slot. See AI actions.
When it looks and answers the way you want, add it to your website so real visitors can use it. See Adding your chatbot to your website.