How we build AI chatbots that customers actually WANT to talk to

AI in customer service is a double-edged sword.

When done right, the benefits for your customers (and for your company) are too good to ignore.

AI doesn’t need sleep...

It requires less overhead than employees...

And chatbots help people at scale, potentially replacing entire customer service teams!

But if you use it the wrong way?

You risk losing the “human touch” — the empathy, care, and attention that comes from having a real person on the other side of the screen.

At AE Studio, we’re all about the human-first approach.

But, we’re also about delivering stellar results for our clients.

So, when two of our clients asked us to implement AI into their customer service in a pro-human way, we took it as a challenge 💪

Max

Max is an AI chatbot we developed for IncomeMax, a nonprofit organization that advises people who are struggling with their finances.

Originally, to complete the first stages of customer onboarding, human service reps had to talk to each applicant individually to gather their information.

This was a huge bottleneck! 😬

So we integrated Max with their CRM.

This let users fill out their initial application by conversationally talking to Max.

Once finished, Max would escalate the case to a service rep, who could then walk the customer through the next steps.

This setup helped increase consistency of customer onboarding, while still allowing experienced humans to take over for the final stages.

AskElle

AskElle is a groundbreaking AI dating coach for teens.

We built this app in a partnership with TikTok star Elle Kristine, and modeled the AI on her unique personality and extensive backlog of dating content.

Elle’s AI avatar gives teenagers safe, age-appropriate relationship advice, and gets to know the user over time to deliver personalized guidance for their dating style.

In just 2 months, total downloads for the app increased by 2x!

Training the AI

For both chatbots, the key priorities were brand identity, personality, and empathy.

For Max, we implemented a RAG system — an “AI brain” — and then trained it on IncomeMax’s custom database of documentation.

Then we added some customization to the responses by hand, to guarantee the right tone and style...

And voilà!

Finally, if the AI ever hit an edge case where it couldn’t help the user, it would escalate to a human as a fallback, which alleviated the need for the AI to be 100% perfect.

For AskElle, we wanted users to feel like they were really talking to Elle Kristine.

To achieve this, we trained the chatbot on examples of her writing from her Twitter account.

(This was a super effective approach — it even uses a lot of emojis, just like Elle! 😄)

And of course, we also put guardrails and filtering in place for both bots to make sure they couldn’t say anything offensive.

AI is still an emerging technology.

But, it will only keep getting more “human,” and revolutionize customer service for businesses in nearly every industry.

Here at AE Studio, we’re obsessed with increasing human agency by creating game-changing, ethical AI products.

If you think that a custom AI model might be the right solution for your business...

🙋‍♂️ Get in touch with us here, and let’s brainstorm your idea together.

We’re a full-service studio, here to help:

• Act as your CTO, guiding your project with seasoned expertise

• Drive end-to-end product creation, from design to development

• Deliver AI solutions that merge seamlessly with your business

And as always...

Keep an eye out for the next edition of AE Studio Bytes!