AI Chatbot for Shopify: Answer Store Questions 24/7

A Shopify store gets the same questions every day. Do you deliver to my city, how long does it take, can I return it, will the medium fit me. Almost every answer is already written somewhere in the store, on a shipping page, a size guide or a product description, and the shopper asking at midnight cannot find it. A chatbot that answers from those pages, at any hour, is one line of code in your theme.

This guide covers what is particular to Shopify: which store pages to have the chatbot read, where the line goes, what a theme update does to it, and what the chatbot cannot do. The general path from sign-up to a working bubble is in how to add an AI chatbot to your website. Shopify's menus are from its own help pages, checked on 4 October 2026; TailGPT's prices are as of the same date.

Is there a TailGPT app for Shopify?

No. TailGPT is not in the Shopify App Store, and the install is one line of code pasted into your theme:

<script src="https://…/widget.js" data-key="…"></script>

That has two consequences worth knowing before you start. There is nothing to install and no permissions to grant, so TailGPT never sees your orders, customers or stock levels. That is also exactly why it cannot answer questions that need them, which is covered further down. And the chatbot's name, logo, colour, greeting and role are set in the TailGPT dashboard, so changing them later never means opening your theme code again.

Which store pages should the chatbot read?

The pages that answer what shoppers ask before they buy. When you add your store, TailGPT lists its pages from the store's sitemap. Shopify makes this for you: its help page says every store "automatically" generates a sitemap.xml with links to "all your products, primary product image, pages, collections, and blog posts". On a store of any size, that is far more than the questions need.

Keep these ticked:

• Shipping and delivery. Zones, timelines, charges, the free-delivery threshold, cash on delivery if you offer it.
• Returns and exchanges. How many days, what condition, who pays the courier.
• Size guides and care instructions. Written out in words. A size chart saved as an image cannot be read.
• Your FAQ page.
• Best-selling and most-asked-about products. The ones shoppers message you about, not the whole catalogue.
• Key collections that carry real text. A collection page explaining "our handloom range is woven in Maheshwar and should be dry-cleaned" answers questions. One that is only a grid of product tiles does not.
• Contact and about. Where you ship from, how to reach you, your hours.

Untick old sale collections, blog posts about past launches, and products you no longer sell. AI chatbot for an online store: what it should answer covers the five questions that matter most to a shop and how to write the pages that answer them.

What about the policies under Settings?

Check that your shipping and returns policies are actually in the list. Shopify lets you write store policies under Settings → Policies, and serves them at addresses such as /policies/refund-policy and /policies/shipping-policy. Shopify's sitemap help names products, pages, collections and blog posts, and does not mention these policy pages. If your returns policy is missing from the list TailGPT shows you, copy it onto an ordinary page in your store, or upload it to TailGPT as a document once you have a plan. A chatbot cannot answer from a policy it never read.

How many pages will a store need?

Every product address counts as one page, whatever its length. As of 4 October 2026, Starter reads up to 1,000 pages and Growth up to 7,500, shared across your websites, and the free trial reads up to 500. A store with 1,800 products does not need all 1,800 read. Most shopper questions are about policies and a few dozen products, and those are what to tick first. The full limits are on the pricing page.

Is your store still behind a password?

Add the store to TailGPT once the password page is off. Shopify's help explains that in private mode "all of your online store's pages are hidden from visitors and search engines", and a store on a trial plan has to complete that step before the password can be removed. A page TailGPT cannot open is a page it cannot read. Add the address shoppers actually use, too: if your store has its own domain, add that rather than the myshopify.com address, because the chatbot's key works only on the website you added, with or without www.

How do you add the chatbot code to theme.liquid?

You paste one line just above </body> in your theme's theme.liquid file. Shopify's developer documentation calls theme.liquid the default layout file that every theme must include, and every page template is rendered through it, so a line placed there appears on every page of the store.

1. Copy the line. In TailGPT, open the chatbot and press Copy beside its code. The code appears once you have chosen a plan.
2. Duplicate your theme first. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, click the ⋯ menu button beside your theme and choose Duplicate. Shopify's help suggests this so you can "discard your changes and start again if you need to". The copy appears as "Copy of" your theme's name.
3. Open the code editor. Go to Online Store, click the ⋯ menu button on your current theme, then Edit code.
4. Open the layout file. In the Layout folder, open theme.liquid.
5. Find the closing body tag. Search within the file for </body>. It is near the end.
6. Paste the line on its own line, directly above </body>.
7. Save. The change goes live on the published theme straight away.

Shopify's help notes one restriction: you can edit a theme's code only after you have purchased it. A free theme or one you already own is fine. On a phone, the same editor is under Online Store → Manage themes → ⋯ → Edit code in the Shopify app, though a laptop is easier for this.

What happens to the chatbot when you update your Shopify theme?

It usually survives, but not always, so check after every update. Shopify's help on updating themes says that when your code edits do not conflict with the update, "your code edits will be included with the update". When they do conflict, Shopify shows "Theme added: code edits could not be included", and its edit-code page is blunter: in that case "all your code changes are removed in the updated copy". Shopify advises saving a copy of any customised code before you update.

For this one line, that means three habits:

• Keep the line somewhere safe. You can always copy it again from the chatbot's page in TailGPT.
• After a theme update, open theme.liquid in the new version and check the line is still above </body>.
• After switching to a different theme altogether, paste it again. A new theme has its own theme.liquid.

The quickest check is the Chatbots page in TailGPT. A chatbot shows Live when TailGPT sees its bubble loading on your site, so if Live has gone after an update, the line probably has too.

What can the chatbot not do on a Shopify store?

It cannot do anything that needs your Shopify admin. TailGPT answers from the pages you ticked and the documents you uploaded, and has no connection to orders, stock, carts or customers.

It also cannot hand a conversation to a person or collect a shopper's email. What it can do is answer from what your pages say, including how to reach you or where to track an order, if a page you ticked explains that. When the pages do not cover a question, it says plainly that the store's website does not cover it, rather than inventing a delivery date or a stock level.

How do you keep answers right when products change often?

Re-read the store after anything a shopper might ask about changes. TailGPT does not refresh on its own: you press Re-crawl, and each re-read comes from a monthly allowance shared across your account. As of 4 October 2026, Starter includes two re-reads a month and Growth eight. Until you re-read, the chatbot answers from the pages as they were.

A store whose prices or stock change daily cannot keep a chatbot current by re-reading alone, so split the facts:

• Stable facts belong in the pages the chatbot reads. Materials, measurements, care, what is in the box, shipping zones, the returns window. These change rarely and answer most questions.
• Fast-moving facts belong on the live product page. Today's stock and a flash-sale price are things a shopper should check on the product page itself before paying.
• Re-read before a sale, not after. Update the shipping and returns pages for the sale, then press Re-crawl the day before it starts.
• Untick what you stop selling. Un-ticking a product takes effect at the next read, so pair it with one.

A sale is also when questions peak. Questions are one pool for the whole account: 4,000 a month on Starter and 10,000 on Growth, as of 4 October 2026. TailGPT emails you at 80% and again at 100%, and at the limit the bubble goes quiet until the month resets, you upgrade or you buy a top-up of questions. How many chatbot questions a month does your site need shows how to size that from your traffic.

How do you check the chatbot is working on your store?

Test it before it goes in, and again on the live store. Before you choose a plan, Try demo on the chatbot's page lets you ask the finished bot real questions; the free trial gives you 20. Use them on the questions in your inbox: delivery to a specific city, the returns window, a size question about a best-seller.

After saving theme.liquid, open your store in a private browser window. The bubble should be in the corner you chose. Ask one question your pages answer and one they do not, then check the Chatbots page shows Live. If there is no bubble, check that you edited the published theme rather than the duplicate, and that you are on the domain you added to TailGPT.