ChatFactory is an AI Buying Agent that enables your buyers to navigate their own journey through personalized, self-service experiences. Using a generative AI-driven conversation engine and an AI content recommendation engine, ChatFactory AI Buying Agents help B2B buyers easily access the information and content they need without the friction of navigating bloated B2B websites and irrelevant content experiences. Using AI, B2B buyers can get individualized personalized conversations and content suggestions, and automatically generate their own microsites in real time to come back to later or share with a larger buying group.
This article explains the step-by-step setup process for creating and and configuring your own ChatFactory AI agents. If you need an introduction to ChatFactory, including benefits, use cases, and a quick product tour, please see this ChatFactory Playlist.
ChatFactory Prerequisites
To start using ChatFactory, make sure you have the following items:
- A 300-400 word description of your organization.
- At least 100 content assets (such as website pages or files) that will be used to create Collections of content that help train ChatFactory’s AI conversation engine and content recommendation engine.
- A form (e.g., MAP form) to capture buyer details, such as email addresses.
- A Templated Experiences Landing Page Template that is used to define the design and layout of the 1:1 personalized pages that ChatFactory visitors can auto-generate in real time. These pages summarizes their conversations and also saves any AI content recommendations they’ve bookmarked for future purchasing research and engagement.
Note: Please reach out to your PathFactory Customer Success Manager (CSM) so they can help guide and support you through this ChatFactory AI Agent setup process, outlined below.
ChatFactory Setup Process Overview
Setting up your ChatFactory AI Agent involves a series of steps to ensure it functions effectively and aligns with your organization’s goals. The steps below give a high level overview for creating, customizing, and optimizing your Agent.
- Create a Matching Collection: The Matching Collection powers the conversation engine. This Collection is a set of assets from your Content Library that ChatFactory AI uses to learn and respond to visitor questions entered into the chat interface. The content in this Collection is essential for providing accurate and relevant answers during interactions.
- Create a Recommended Collection: This can be the same Collection of content you’ve curated to train your Agent’s conversation engine, or it can be a separate or somewhat different grouping of assets. The Recommended Collection the AI content recommendation results on ChatFactory experience pages.
- Create and Name Your ChatFactory AI Agent: Assign a name to your Agent, select a Templated Experience Landing Page Template that defines the design, layout and components that will display on the AI-generated 1:1 personalized microsite pages that ChatFactory AI generates in real time for B2B buyers, configure form strategies, and link both the Matching and Recommended Collections. Marketers can control the look and feel of AI agent generated experiences and
- Configure Branding and Layout: Customize the Agent’s appearance to match your brand by adjusting its colors, fonts, and layout.
- View Content Consumption Analytics: Once your Agent is live, you’ll want to track engagement activity for insights that will help you understand and improve the quality and relevance of self-service buyer journeys for your target audiences. You’ll see granular known and anonymous engagement activity and query-level intent at the account level.
Understanding Collections in ChatFactory
Before we dive into the setup, it’s essential to understand the two types of Collections that power ChatFactory: Matching and Recommended.
Note: You can find instructions on how to create Collections in the article, How to Create and Use Collections For Templated Experiences & Content Playlists.
Matching Collection
- This Collection serves as the primary knowledge base for ChatFactory’s AI engine. It includes content assets (such as articles, pages, or documents) that ChatFactory pulls from to answer buyer questions. The AI uses this curated set of content to provide relevant, accurate responses during conversations.
- The Matching Collection should be comprehensive, containing a wide range of content assets that reflect the information buyers are likely to ask about. Including content that includes a holistic cross-section of early, mid and late stage journey content is the goal.
Recommended Collection
- This Collection drives ChatFactory’s AI-powered content recommendations. It suggests additional content based on the buyer’s interactions with ChatFactory conversations, helping them dive even deeper into the topics of interest they’re exploring in the chat conversation. The Recommended Collection is usually a subset of the Matching Collection or a carefully chosen group of assets designed to encourage further engagement.
- You can create a Recommended Collection using any set of content assets that align with your goals and the use case that you are focused on when creating your ChatFactory AI Agent.
Note: Before proceeding to create a ChatFactory AI Agent, you must have already created or identified two Collections to use – Matching and Recommended.
How to Create a ChatFactory AI Agent
The first step is to create your ChatFactory AI Agent.
- On the left side menu panel, expand the Content Experiences menu, and then select ChatFactory.
- ChatFactory opens and displays the Agents tab. Here you see a list of all Agents that have been created in your organization.
- To create a new Agent, click Create Agent. A popup menu opens, for you to enter a name for the new Agent, on which Landing Page you want the Agent to appear, its Matching Collection and its Recommended Collection.
- When you have entered the required information, to add the new Agent click Done. To leave without saving the new Agent, click Cancel.
How to Edit and Customize a ChatFactory AI Agent
Once you have created the Agent, you can customize its behavior, appearance, and AI settings. This customization is key to ensuring that the Agent aligns with your brand and offers the best user experience for your buyers.
- From the list of ChatFactory AI Agents select the one you want to edit. Then click on the pencil icon that appears in its Quick Pane.
- The Agent opens on its Agent Config tab. To modify any of the information here, first click Edit.
Agent Config Tab
- On this tab, set up the behavior and placement of Recommended content, set the form strategy, Landing Page, and more. (Your CSM is ready to support you!)
The following settings are available for you to customize:
- General – Configure the basic settings for your Agent, such as its name and overall behavior. This section covers the fundamental setup that dictates how the Agent interacts with buyers.
- Landing Page Details – Select the Landing Page where your Agent will appear to guide buyers directly to relevant content. To ensure known visitors automatically receive a personalized microsite in their email at the end of their visit, activate the toggle labeled Send Experience To Known User Automatically At the End of the Session.
- Form Strategy – Determine how and when forms are used to capture buyer information. Set triggers for form display and define the behavior, such as whether form submission is required or optional.
- Customize Options – Adjust advanced settings like featured content display, preview modes, and other customization options that affect how buyers view and interact with content.
- When you have finished setting up the Agent Details menu, to lock in your changes scroll to the bottom of the tab and click Save. To exit without saving, click Cancel.
- To proceed to customize the appearance of the given Agent to align with your organization’s branding, select the Theme Settings tab.
Theme Settings Tab
- Using the available editing menus (highlighted in the screen capture below), customize the colors, logos, fonts and more to ensure consistency with your brand identity at a granular level.
- General Settings: Use this section to define the default colors, layout and font definition
- Header: Define the header color, logo and associated text that goes with the logo
- Chat Window: Colors, empty state message, placeholder message, icons, Agent name, helper text, recommendation style (thumbnail vs. title, description)
- Suggested Questions: Colors
- History: Colors of query and message text
- Library: Colors, content asset titles, message appearance, information message appearance, action button text style
- Help: Colors, info message
- Cookie Consent: Colors, cookie consent message appearance, redirect URL
- Experience Creation: Colors, logo, promotional message appearance
- Footer: Colors, footer message appearance
- User Profile: Colors for cards, background, and title
- When you are finished (at least for now) editing the appearance of the Agent, to lock in your changes, at the top of the tab click Save. To exit without saving, click Cancel.
Now that you’ve completed the essential setup and customization of your ChatFactory AI Agent, it’s time to put it to the test and see it in action. To do this, follow the simple instructions below.
AI Config tab
The AI Config tab is exclusively managed by your Customer Success Manager (CSM). Your CSM will collaborate with you during a planning session to adjust these AI settings, ensuring they align with your specific business needs and optimize the performance of your ChatFactory AI Agent. Avoid making any changes to this tab on your own to maintain the intended configuration.
The following settings are available on the AI Config tab for you to customize:
- General – Configure the basic settings for your Agent, such as its name and overall behavior. This section covers the fundamental setup that dictates how the Agent interacts with buyers.
- Landing Page Details – Specify the Landing Page that is associated with your Agent. The Agent uses this Landing Page as the template to generate the personalized experience when the buyer clicks Create Experience in ChatFactory.
- Form Strategy – Determine how and when forms are used to capture buyer information. Set triggers for form display and define the behavior, such as whether form submission is required or optional.
- Customize Options – Adjust advanced settings like featured content display, preview modes, and other customization options that affect how buyers view and interact with content.
How to Test Your New ChatFactory AI Agent
After you have created your ChatFactory AI Agent, you’ll want to test its responsiveness and adjust settings as necessary. Follow the steps below to test it.
- Open the list of ChatFactory AI Agents. Select the checkbox for the Agent you want to view, as shown in the screen capture below.
- You’ll notice a Quick Pane menu opens on the right. Select the Agent URL and copy it to your clipboard.
- Paste the URL in a new browser window.
- Verify the Agent behaves and appears as planned. Return to edit the Agent as necessary, to get the results you want.
How to Open a ChatFactory AI Agent for Editing
To make adjustments to an Agent, follow the steps below.
- Select the Agent from the list of ChatFactory AI Agents. If your organization has several Agents, you can narrow down your search results by sorting the columns.
- After you select an Agent, a Quick Pane appears listing the Agent Name, its URL, its Landing Page, and its Matching and Recommended Collection. Click on the pencil icon as shown in the screen capture below.
- The Agent opens on its Agent Config tab. Click through the three tabs and edit the settings as needed.
How to View ChatFactory Analytics
Once buyers have started engaging with ChatFactory, you can view analytic data on their engagement with the Agent.
To access the analytics for ChatFactory, click on the Analytics button as highlighted in the screen capture below.
The ChatFactory Analytics page opens, as shown below.
Data Filters
You can filter the data by Agent, date range, email address, accounts, and visitor IDs to focus on specific interactions. Filters allow you to narrow your view based on what’s most important for your analysis, such as isolating engagement from specific accounts or focusing on particular time periods.
Graphs
The graphs in this section show high-level engagement trends on a daily basis. These visual representations help you quickly spot patterns in visitor activity and conversation volume, offering a snapshot of your Agent’s daily performance.
- Daily Visitors Count – This graph displays the number of unique visitors interacting with the ChatFactory AI Agent each day, giving you a clear picture of daily engagement trends. By analyzing the visitor count over time, you can assess the popularity of the Agent and identify any patterns in traffic, such as spikes after specific campaigns or promotions.
- Daily Conversations Count – This graph shows the total number of conversations initiated by buyers on a daily basis. Monitoring daily conversations helps you track how often buyers are using the Agent, which can reveal the Agent’s utility and engagement levels on different days. It’s a useful metric for understanding peaks in buyer activity and identifying opportunities to improve content or prompts.
Tables (Session-Based Data)
- Conversations Table – This table provides detailed information on individual conversations, including the conversation ID, visitor ID, the time the conversation was created, the email address and account name of the visitor (if available), and the specific query they asked. This data allows you to dig into specific interactions and understand the types of questions buyers are asking and the information they want the most. These granular queries can also help you understand intent and topics of interest within specific accounts.
- Recommendations Table – This table lists details of the recommendations given to buyers, including the conversation ID, the content that was recommended, and its title. By analyzing which content is being recommended most often, you can gauge whether the recommendations align with buyer needs and adjust your Collections accordingly.
- Visitor Page Views Table – This table captures information on the pages visitors viewed during their session. It includes the visitor ID, start time, email address, city, country, session duration, URL, page view ID, session ID, and context. Reviewing this data helps you understand the buyer’s journey through your content and how effectively the Agent directs them to the right information.
- Form Capture Table – This table lists details on forms that were shown and filled by visitors, including the visitor ID, session ID, email address, account name, form ID, and form fills. This information is crucial for tracking conversion points and evaluating the effectiveness of your form strategy.
How to Export Analytics Data
To see step-by-step instructions on data report export options and scheduling data exports, read How to Download and Share Analytic Reports, a section in the article, Creating, Analyzing & Sharing Data Reports.
How to Set Up Governance for ChatFactory AI Agents
In ChatFactory, you can set governance policies that apply to all ChatFactory AI Agents created in your organization.
To proceed, open ChatFactory and then navigate to the Access Protection tab, as shown in the screen capture below.
On this tab, you can add and edit the following governance settings.
Access Protection
Control which users or groups have access to specific ChatFactory AI Agents by configuring the following:
- Protection Type: Define the type of access restriction, such as password protection or IP-based restrictions.
- Allow Groups: Select specific user groups that are permitted to view and interact with the Agent.
- Disallow Groups: Specify user groups that should not have access to the Agent.
User Profile
If you want users in your organization to have personalized profiles, activate the User Profile toggle. Enabling profiles allows users to better track their interactions and manage their personalized settings within ChatFactory. Once profiles are enabled, users will see a structured menu where they can manage their experience.
After clicking their login name, users will see the following options:
- Choose Agent: Select and switch between available Agents (e.g., Sales Agent, Support Agent).
- Manage Profile: Add or update personal information, such as profile photo, name, and other details.
- Data Privacy & Security: Manage consent, view data retention policies, and clear chat history.
What Happens After Your CSM Activates ChatFactory for Your Organization
When ChatFactory is enabled for your organization for the first time, there are several background tasks that happen automatically to get everything ready, including an analysis of your Matching Collection. During this time, the option to create new Agents will be disabled. When the ChatFactory has finished the analysis, you will receive an email notification, immediately after which you may begin creating ChatFactory AI Agents. See the screen capture below for an example of the email you will receive.
Future Content Updates
After the initial setup, ChatFactory continues working in the background whenever you add new content assets to the Matching Collection. These new uploads are analyzed automatically, ensuring the AI can use the content effectively in future interactions.
Note: There’s no need to do anything manually—ChatFactory takes care of everything. You’ll receive notifications when important tasks, like content analysis (or re-analysis), are completed.
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