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Ask AI for Site Visitors

Ask AI helps visitors explore a published Site through questions. It can explain approved page content and documents, summarize permitted Tables or datasets, and present grounded answers with citations, charts, data exports or maps when the authorized data supports them. It is separate from AI Studio, which helps creators edit apps, and from Agent Actions, which exposes approved APIs to connected agents.

Enable the assistant

Open your Site Workspace and expand the Ask AI card. It is collapsed by default.
Enable Ask AI. Knowledge discovery runs automatically; check Knowledge for coverage and excluded or unavailable sources.
Open Provider & Keys, choose who supplies AI, then review and save funding changes.
Use Preview Chat to test an in-scope question and its sources before sharing.

The full settings page has the same Overview, Provider & Keys, Knowledge, Usage, Activity Logs and Advanced tabs. Knowledge readiness and funding readiness are separate. A ready index does not guarantee a configured key, approval or remaining allowance.

Choose who supplies AI

Choice	Who supplies access	What visitors need
MiniUp AI (admin approved)	A separate allowance explicitly approved by a platform administrator and selected by the Site owner	No AI key or extra payment flow; existing Site access still applies
My API key	The owner’s encrypted provider key, with nonzero owner budgets	No visitor key
Visitor API key	Each visitor’s own supported provider account	A key entered in the trusted assistant for that visit
Both	The owner or visitor, as explicitly selected	Visitors can choose the configured owner sponsorship or their own key

MiniUp AI is unavailable without an explicit live grant. Improve Site permission, a Supporter plan, existing AI credits or Site Admin membership does not grant permission to fund anonymous visitor chat. Managed chat uses a separate platform allowance; it does not debit the owner’s AI-credit wallet. It never silently falls back to another payer. Existing saved owner keys are preserved when switching funding methods.

For approved MiniUp AI, the owner sees the permitted model labels and remaining daily/monthly allowance. If only one model is available, no extra model choice is required. Provider credentials, key masks and internal endpoints are never provided to owners or visitors. When approval expires or is revoked, contact the administrator or explicitly choose another funding method.

Scope and source permissions

Knowledge → Answer scope supports Site Information Only, Site + Related Topics and General AI. Clearly unrelated questions are rejected without a full generation call when the selected policy excludes them. An ambiguous question can need a small paid scope check. Related conceptual explanations are labeled separately from verified Site facts; general answers cannot verify current external facts.

The assistant performs bounded, read-only operations. It cannot write records, execute generated code, grant access, query arbitrary SQL or read another Site’s private data. Every data operation uses the current visitor’s existing access. A rendered page sample is unverified, partial context, and never grants permission to hidden or private resources. Source changes can require retrying a question. Review citations and returned-row scope before relying on totals.

Allowances and spending

Usage distinguishes owner-key, visitor-key and MiniUp AI requests, calls, token estimates and outcomes. Owner API-key budgets apply to My API key and Both. MiniUp AI limits are administered separately at platform, owner and grant/site levels.

Each paid provider step reserves a conservative amount before it runs, including a scope check or a second call after reading data. Consequently, one question can use several calls. Known usage settles at configured conservative token rates; unused reservations are released. Unknown, cancelled or partially failed paid calls retain a conservative charge. A call confirmed not sent releases its monetary reservation. These are estimates and allowance accounting, not provider invoices. Calls can still count toward abuse controls after failure.

“Site AI allowance reached” means the managed budget or call limit was reached. Try later or contact the Site owner. “AI temporarily unavailable” can reflect disabled funding, expired/revoked approval, account or Site restrictions, or unavailable provider configuration. There is no automatic switch to a visitor or owner key.

Appearance and mobile chat

In Advanced → Appearance → Chat theme, choose Light (the default, including older Sites) or Dark. This saves automatically and is independent of the device or dashboard theme. Reload a published page to start with the saved choice; an already open assistant updates at its next secure session renewal.

Phone chat uses a compact rounded panel, leaving part of the Site visible, scrollable and interactive. Landscape places the Site alongside chat. More → Expand conversation / Compact conversation adjusts its size. Opening chat on a touch device does not automatically summon the keyboard. The composer adapts to available keyboard space. Closing and reopening preserves the conversation and visitor key for that visit. Ask AI and MiniUp Live share the dock; opening one panel minimizes the other without ending the chat or Live room.

Privacy, activity and history

Visitor keys stay in memory inside the trusted MiniUp assistant for the visit. Owner keys and platform keys remain encrypted on the server and are never returned in plaintext. Do not place keys in page files, prompts or documents.

The owner’s recording policy is disclosed through Privacy. When enabled, encrypted question/answer activity and bounded call details are available only to the actual owner, subject to configured retention and deletion. Owners use Activity Logs to filter requests by status, provider, funding and period. Platform funding administration uses aggregates rather than visitor transcripts. Aggregate usage and authoritative spending records remain separate from transcript deletion.

Optional device history and signed-in saved history have separate controls. Turning off recording or saved server history has the deletion behavior described in the confirmation. Avoid sharing sensitive information and verify important answers.

Platform administrator setup

In Admin → AI Model Setup → Ask AI Funding:

Configure an enabled provider and JSON chat model using the existing AI Model Setup. The initial managed release supports OpenAI-compatible and Gemini transport for non-reasoning JSON chat models, including configured model IDs outside the legacy visitor-key list.
Approve models, enter conservative token price ceilings, and set positive platform/per-owner spend, calls, concurrency, per-question, per-call, scope-check and token caps.
Explicitly enable managed visitor funding. This is off by default.
Open Admin → Users, search by name, username or email, and select Enable Ask AI on the user card. You can also search users directly in Ask AI Funding. No account or Site ID is needed. New approvals use the approved models and per-owner limits.
Use Advanced settings only for a different model subset, lower allowance, expiry or a specific Site. Select the user, then choose one of their Sites by name or address. Existing limits, model choices, expiry and Site exceptions are preserved by the user controls. Expired or outdated approvals require review before re-enabling. Site grants bind to the current owner. Explicit denial wins; an expired/revoked Site grant does not fall through to a broader owner grant.
Ask the Site owner to opt in, then monitor remaining allocation, usage and the grant audit trail. Emergency stop managed AI stops new paid steps and cancels in-flight work when the change is detected.

Disable Ask AI on a user card stops MiniUp funding for all their Sites, including individually approved Sites. It preserves previous usage and the owner’s settings. Platform funding setup must be ready before a user can be enabled; the control links to setup when needed.

Revocation, provider/model/key changes, blocked owners, ownership transfer and Site publication/access changes are rechecked before paid steps and answer delivery. In-flight checks run periodically; a provider may already have incurred a charge before cancellation. Publishing changes does not automatically approve funding or issue a paid-provider test.

Ask AI · visitor chat · MiniUp AI · funding · allowance · BYOK · theme · Scope Guard