Quick start guide
Here's the fastest real path from installed-but-unconfigured to customers actually chatting with your AI assistant. Prefer a checklist? Open Home and use the Setup Guide.
What you'll need
ShopGuide installed on your store, and admin access to your theme editor.
Open the theme editor
From your Shopify admin: Online Store > Themes, find your active theme, click Customize, and navigate to wherever you want the chat — the homepage is a reasonable default.
Add the ShopGuide Chat section
Click Add section, search for "ShopGuide Chat," add it, and place it anywhere on the page — its on-screen position doesn't depend on where it sits in the section list.
The few settings worth touching right away
The section has a handful of options right in the theme editor. Tick Use custom settings first, then set a Chat Heading (defaults to "ShopGuide" — worth changing to your store name, or something like "Ask [Store Name]"), a Primary Color for user messages and the widget border, and a Product Discussed field that auto-fills on product pages so the AI has the right context. Without it the section uses the global values from Customize. To replace the default opening line, tick Use custom launch message, then edit Custom Launch Message and Button 1–6 Text.
For colors, sizing, shadows, and everything else that applies store-wide, that's the Customize page in the ShopGuide admin app, not the theme editor — see Chat appearance.
Preview it
Click Preview, find the widget on the page, click the bubble, and send a test message. Try a product question and see the search actually pull something relevant. On a new install ShopGuide reads your catalog automatically; a progress bar on Home shows it.
Publish
If it looks right, click Save. The chat is live.
Once it's live
Test it with a few real scenarios: a product recommendation question, something that requires looking something up (shipping, materials, sizing), and an order-tracking or support question. Then keep an eye on it — check Chats for transcripts, check Analytics for session and conversion numbers, and watch the knowledge gaps list for questions the AI couldn't fully answer.
If something's not working
Chat not appearing at all? Confirm you saved the theme changes, and that the section is on a page you're actually viewing. Chat not responding? Confirm you haven't passed the free 5 chat-assisted orders or your plan's sales bracket for more than 14 days, and check your connection. Styling look off? Adjust the primary color and heading right in the section settings, or head to the Customize page for anything deeper.