How to turn your help center into an AI chatbot
By the Paperlink AI team · Published
Short answer
Point an AI chatbot at your public help center, pick the sections it may answer from, and add one script tag to your website. Choose a tool that answers only from those pages, refuses when they do not cover a question, and re-reads the site on a schedule so answers follow your docs.
Your help center already holds the answers your visitors want. The problem is that visitors don't read it: they skim, give up and open a ticket. An AI chatbot that reads your help center can answer those questions in the visitor's own words. This guide shows how to set one up so it answers only from your pages and stays current as they change.
What you need before you start
- A public help center or docs site. The pages must load without a login. Private pages and internal wikis need a different route, such as a document upload.
- A list of 20 real questions. Take them from recent tickets, chats or sales calls. You will use them to test the bot before visitors see it.
- A way to add one script tag to your website. Every common website builder and framework allows this.
Step 1: Decide which pages the bot may answer from
A bot is only as good as the pages it reads. Point it at the part of your site that answers customer questions, and leave out pages that would confuse it: marketing pages full of claims, old release notes, and job posts.
In Paperlink AI, the address you paste sets the scope. Paste https://example.com/help/ and only pages under /help/ are imported. You then pick which sections to keep from a list of everything that was found.
Step 2: Import the site
- In the Paperlink AI dashboard, open Documents and select Add website.
- Paste your help center address and select Find pages.
- Pick the sections to import, or select all pages, and save.
Paperlink AI follows links up to 5 steps from the address you give (3 during the trial), reads each page and indexes the text. It follows your robots.txt, so a page you block from crawlers is never imported.
PDFs that your pages link to are not imported with the site. If you have policy PDFs, handbooks or price sheets, upload them next to the website. Paperlink AI accepts PDF, DOCX, XLSX, HTML, CSV, TXT and Markdown, up to 25 MB per file.
Step 3: Test with your 20 real questions
Ask every question from your list in the Playground before you go live. For each answer, check three things:
- Is it correct? Compare it with the page you would have sent the customer.
- Where did it come from? Paperlink AI shows your team the document and page behind every answer, so you can see when the bot picked an outdated page.
- Did it refuse when it should? Ask a few questions your help center does not cover. A good bot says it doesn't know instead of guessing.
A wrong answer usually means a missing or outdated page. Fix the page, update the website in the dashboard, and ask again.
Step 4: Set what happens when the bot does not know
No help center covers everything. Decide where a visitor goes when the bot has no answer: a support email, a contact form or a booking link. In Paperlink AI, the bot shows your contact details instead of a guess, and the question lands in your Unanswered report so you know which page to write next. Our guide on stopping made-up answers explains why this matters.
Step 5: Add the widget to your website
Paste one script tag into your site, with the widget key from your dashboard:
<script src="https://api.paperlinkai.com/widget.js" data-api-key="YOUR_API_KEY" async></script>
The install guides cover React, Next.js and Vue, and WordPress, Webflow and Shopify.
Step 6: Keep the answers current
Help centers change often. A bot that read your site once will drift from it. Paperlink AI checks an imported website again on a schedule: weekly on Starter, daily on Growth and up. During the trial you can import 1 website, with no automatic updates. Each update skips pages that did not change, and removes a page only after it stays gone on two updates in a row.
Review the Unanswered report once a week. Each entry is a question a visitor asked that your pages did not answer.
Common problems and fixes
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Pages behind a login are missing | Only public pages can be imported. Upload private content as documents instead. |
| Your robots.txt blocks the crawler | Allow PaperlinkAI-Crawler in robots.txt. The website import guide has the exact lines. |
| Some pages need JavaScript to show text | Paperlink AI renders a limited number of these pages each day. The rest wait for the next update. |
| An old page and a new page disagree | Remove the old page from your site, or clear its section in Edit pages. For uploaded documents, mark the newer one as superseding the older one. |
Questions people ask
Do I need a developer?
No. Importing the site happens in the dashboard. Installing the widget is one script tag that you paste once.
Will the bot answer from the whole internet?
No. Paperlink AI answers only from the pages and documents you add. When they do not hold the answer, the bot says so.
Can visitors ask in other languages?
Yes. The bot replies in the language the visitor writes in. Answer quality can differ between languages, so test the languages your visitors use.
Try it on your own help center
Paste your help center URL or upload your documents, then ask the questions your visitors ask. 7-day trial, card required, cancel anytime.