Setting it up

October 2026.

Setting up takes about fifteen minutes: choose an AI company, make a key with them, paste it in, set your cap, then try it and switch it on.

1. Choose Anthropic or OpenAI

The assistant can use the AI of either of two companies. Both work the same way here, with the same rules, the same knowledge and the same buttons:

• Anthropic, whose AI is called Claude;
• OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

If you already have an account with one of them, use that. If not, either is fine: both cost well under a penny for a typical answer with their cheapest model. You can switch later without losing anything, because the website keeps a key and a model for each.

2. Get a key in your business's own name

You need your own API key from the company you chose. Make the account in your business's own name, with your business email address, so the key, the bills and the account stay with the business, whoever builds or looks after your website.

Anthropic

1. Go to console.anthropic.com and sign up.
2. Add your business's details and a payment card under Billing, and buy a small amount of credit (£5 or £10 is plenty to start). You can also set a monthly limit there, as a second safety net.
3. Go to API keys, click Create key and call it something like "Website assistant".
4. Copy the key. It starts sk-ant- and is long.

OpenAI

1. Go to platform.openai.com and sign up. (This is OpenAI's account for businesses and developers, not a ChatGPT subscription: a ChatGPT Plus plan doesn't include API use.)
2. Under Settings → Billing, add your business's details and a payment card and buy a small amount of credit. You can set a monthly budget there too.
3. Go to API keys, click Create new secret key and call it something like "Website assistant".
4. Copy the key. It starts sk- (often sk-proj-) and is long.

Both companies show the key only once, so keep the page open until you've pasted it.

Never email the key or send it in a chat. Anyone with it could spend your credit. If you think someone else has seen it, delete it in that company's console and make a new one.

3. Add the key and choose the service

1. Go to your business menu → Settings → Assistant.
2. Under AI service and key, choose the AI service: Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI (ChatGPT).
3. Paste the key into that company's box: Anthropic key or OpenAI key.
4. Click Save changes.

The website checks the key with that company straight away. It then shows saved, ends and the last four characters of the key, and Working. The box for the service in use says In use. It never shows the whole key again: it's stored encrypted on your website.

To replace a key, paste a new one and save. To remove one, tick Remove the saved key and save. You can keep both keys saved: the assistant uses only the one for the service chosen.

If you see Not accepted: paste a new key, the key was deleted, mistyped, or the account has no credit. Check that company's console, then paste the key again.

4. Choose the model

Each company offers more than one model. The list puts the cheapest first, and that's the one chosen to start with:

• Anthropic model: Claude Haiku 5.5 (cheapest; recommended), or Claude Sonnet 5.5, more careful with tricky questions but about 20 times the cost.
• OpenAI model: GPT-5 nano (cheapest; recommended), or GPT-5 mini, more careful but about 5 times the cost.

The cheapest model answers everyday questions about prices, opening times and services well. Start with it; if answers to more complicated questions disappoint you, try the other one for a while in Try it, and keep an eye on the spending.

You can change the model, or the service, at any time: choose another one and click Save changes. The next question uses it. Each service remembers its own choice.

Other model ID (advanced) is for when one of the companies brings out a newer model that isn't in the list yet. Type its name exactly as the company writes it (for example on its pricing page) and save; it's used for the service chosen above instead of the list. Leave it blank otherwise. Its costs are counted at that company's dearest listed price, so your cap stays safe. If the company doesn't recognise the name, visitors get your hand-over buttons, so try it in Try it first.

5. Set the cap

Under Spending:

• Monthly spending cap (£): the most the assistant may spend in a calendar month. It starts at £10 and can be as low as £1. When this month's costs reach it, the assistant stops answering and shows visitors your hand-over buttons instead, until the 1st of next month. Nothing breaks and nobody sees an error.
• Messages per visitor per day: 30 to start with. This stops one visitor, or a robot, using up your cap. There's also a limit of 8 messages a minute.

At the top of the card you can see This month: … of your … cap, how much is left, how many answers it has given, and a bar that fills as the month goes on. When the cap is reached it says Cap reached.

How much will it cost? With the cheapest models, a typical question and answer costs well under a penny, so a few hundred questions a month cost less than a cup of coffee. Even a £2 cap covers a quiet month. The spending is counted on the cautious side, so the company's bill is usually a little lower than the figure shown here.

6. How the chat looks: greeting, suggestions, button

The chat takes your design's colours and fonts by itself: the button in your brand colour, the name and greeting in your headings' font, the messages in your text font. At the top of the chat are your logo (your site icon, or your logo, from Settings → Business) and your business name.

Under The assistant:

• Name at the top of the chat: leave it blank for your business name.
• Greeting: the line in the middle of the chat before a visitor has asked anything. It starts as "What can I help you with today?". Keep it short.
• Suggested questions: up to four, one per line, shown as buttons under the greeting. Visitors can tap one instead of typing. Use the questions people ask you most.
• Chat button icon: Sparkle ✦ (the usual) or Speech bubble. While the chat is open, the button shows a cross.

7. Photos (optional)

Under Photos, Visitors can add photos is off to start with. Switch it on if photos would help people ask their question, for example "Could you do this style on my hair?". Then:

• a + button appears in the chat, beside the question box. Visitors can add up to two photos to a message (JPEG, PNG or WebP; iPhone photos work too in most browsers). They see small thumbnails, which they can remove before sending;
• photos are made smaller in the visitor's browser, sent with the question to your AI company, and never kept: not on your website, not in kept conversations (which only say "[photo]");
• the assistant only describes what can generally be seen. It never diagnoses or assesses a hair, scalp, skin or health condition from a photo and never identifies people: for anything about the visitor's own hair or health it suggests a consultation;
• Photos per visitor per day (5 to start with) limits how many each visitor can send, on top of the messages limit. Photos cost a little more to answer than words.

Under the box the chat then also says: "Photos are sent to (your AI company) to answer your question and aren't kept." Add the photo paragraph to your privacy policy before you switch it on (see Privacy).

The cheapest models (Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-5 nano) can read photos. If you've typed an Other model ID, check in Try it that it can too.

8. Hand-over buttons and extra rules

Under Hand-over links, the buttons shown under answers:

• Booking link: your booking page, or your booking system's link. Blank: your page called Book or Booking, if there is one.
• WhatsApp number: blank uses the WhatsApp number under Settings → Contact.
• Contact page: blank uses your page called Contact.

Leave a box blank to use what the website already has, or to leave that button out.

Extra rules are your own instructions, in your own words: "Always mention that new clients get 10% off their first visit", "Don't discuss other salons". The assistant's own safety rules still come first (see What it won't do).

9. Try it, then switch it on

1. Go to your business menu → Assistant → Try it, and ask it the questions your customers ask (see Trying it).
2. When you're happy, go back to Settings → Assistant and switch on Show the assistant on the website. Click Save changes.
3. Add the suggested paragraph to your privacy policy: Settings → Privacy → Policy guide, under Gradespace Assistant (see Privacy).

The chat button now appears at the bottom right of every page of your website. To hide it again, switch it off.

The status line

At the top of Assistant you always see whether it's On or Off, the AI service and model in use, this month's spending against your cap, and a warning if the key is missing or wasn't accepted, or the cap has been reached.