Surface Kit AI – AI Chatbot & Conversational AI

Surface Kit AI is a WordPress chatbot plugin that answers your visitors’ questions with AI, with answers you write yourself, or with both. Connect ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Google Gemini or any OpenAI-compatible service, describe your business once, and your site gets a chat assistant that knows your opening hours, prices, policies and products. Prefer not to use AI at all? Choose the simple assistant: a keyword-based FAQ bot that runs in the visitor’s browser, needs no API key, and costs nothing.

A guided setup wizard opens the moment you activate the plugin. It asks what kind of assistant you want, helps you describe your site (with ready-made examples for a restaurant, an online shop and a dental clinic), connects your AI provider, and puts the chat on your site. Most sites are live in a few minutes, without writing any code.

What you can add to your site

Surface Kit AI gives you three chat features. Use one, two or all three.

• AI chat bubble (AI Widget). A floating chat button in the corner of your pages. Visitors open it, ask a question in their own words, and get an answer written by the AI from the information you provided.
• Full-page AI chat (Chat Page). A dedicated chat page at an address you choose, such as yoursite.com/chat. Show it full screen like a chat app, or inside your theme with your header, menu and footer.
• Simple assistant (Rule Bot). Questions and answers you write yourself, shown as tap-to-ask buttons. Visitors can also type, and the bot matches their words to your answers. It runs entirely in the browser: no API key, no AI cost, no rate limits.

Choose the kind of assistant you need

The first question in setup decides everything else, so you only ever see the settings you need.

• AI assistant. Answers anything about your business in natural language. Needs an API key from an AI provider, and each message costs a small amount on that provider’s bill.
• Simple assistant (no AI). Answers from questions you write. Free forever, nothing to connect, and the AI screens stay hidden.
• Both. AI answers for open questions, plus instant, free answers for the questions people ask most.

You can switch type at any time under Surface Kit AI → Settings. Every feature keeps its settings, so switching back restores them.

Works with the AI provider you already use

• OpenAI (the models behind ChatGPT)
• Anthropic (Claude)
• Google (Gemini)
• Any OpenAI-compatible API, with one-click presets for OpenRouter, Groq, DeepSeek, Z.ai and Zhipu (GLM), Alibaba Qwen, Moonshot (Kimi), MiniMax, Mistral, Together AI, Fireworks AI, Cerebras, SiliconFlow, Perplexity and xAI (Grok)
• Self-hosted models on your own server through Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM or llama.cpp

You use your own API key, so you pay the provider directly at their published prices. Surface Kit AI adds no markup and no subscription.

Pick a model without knowing the catalogue

Model names change often and are hard to compare. Surface Kit AI shows a short list of recommended models for each provider as cards, each labelled with a cost tier:

• Lowest cost: quick, simple answers. Plenty for FAQs, opening hours and contact details.
• Balanced: smarter answers for a little more. A good default for most sites.
• Best answers: the most capable option, for detailed questions. Costs the most.

Prefer something else? Choose Other model and type any model name your provider offers, or click Show all models to load the live list from your account. Recommended models your account cannot use are hidden automatically.

One API key for everything, or a different AI per feature

Your main AI connection powers every AI feature. If you want more control, give the chat bubble or the chat page its own provider, model and key under Settings → Give a feature its own AI. For example, use a low-cost model for the chat bubble and a stronger one for the full chat page. When the provider is the same, the main key is reused, so you never paste the same key twice.

Teach the AI about your business

Write what the assistant should know the way you would brief a new member of staff: who you are, what you sell, hours, prices, delivery, returns, booking rules. Add a few lines on tone, such as “be warm and brief” or “send people to the contact page when unsure”. The AI uses this on every reply and says so plainly when a question is not covered.

Built-in cost control

• Rate limits per visitor across three windows: per 10 minutes, per hour and per day. They apply to AI messages only.
• A cap on reply length and on how many earlier messages the AI remembers in a chat.
• Lowest-cost model recommendations, clearly labelled.
• The simple assistant answers your most common questions for free, so the AI only handles the rest.

Privacy and security by default

• Your API keys are encrypted (AES-256-CBC) with your site’s own security salts and never sent to a visitor’s browser.
• Every AI request goes from your server to the provider. Visitors’ browsers never contact the AI service.
• Conversation storage is off by default. When you switch it on, old conversations are deleted after the number of days you choose, and suggested privacy policy wording is provided for you.
• Stored conversations contain only the messages and replies: no page address, user account or IP address.
• No cookies, no tracking, no third-party scripts on your pages, and no “Powered by” links.

Designed for real visitors

• Mobile-friendly chat panel and full-page chat.
• Suggested questions as one-tap buttons, so visitors know what to ask.
• Open the chat bubble automatically after a delay, after scrolling, or when a visitor is about to leave, at most once per visit.
• Show the chat bubble on every page, only on some pages, or on all pages except some.
• Keep the conversation as visitors move between pages.
• Choose the corner, colour, icon, button size, title, welcome message and input placeholder.
• Restrict the full-page chat to logged-in users if you need to.
• AI replies support simple formatting (bold, lists, links), rendered safely as plain text with no HTML injection.

Conversation insights

With storage switched on, the Conversations screen shows chats per day, total chats and messages, average conversation length, and which feature they came from, over 7, 30 or 90 days. Open any conversation to read the full transcript, or delete conversations individually or all at once.

Who is Surface Kit AI for?

• Small businesses that want to answer customer questions at any hour without hiring support staff.
• Restaurants, clinics, salons and local services that get the same questions about hours, booking and prices every day.
• Online stores answering questions about shipping, returns, sizing and product care.
• Agencies and freelancers setting up chatbots for clients, with the AI provider of the client’s choice.
• Bloggers, course creators and publishers who want a “chat with my site” experience.
• Anyone who wants an FAQ bot without AI, without monthly fees, and without sending data to a third party.

How it works

1. Install and activate Surface Kit AI. The setup wizard opens.
2. Choose an AI assistant, a simple assistant, or both.
3. Describe your business, or start from one of the examples.
4. Pick where people can chat: a chat bubble, a full chat page, or both.
5. Paste your API key and choose a model (AI only).
6. Finish. The assistant is live, and View site shows it to you.

For developers

• skai_providers filter: add your own AI service or presets. Any entry that speaks the OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini wire format works.
• skai_system_prompt filter: change the instructions sent with every AI request.
• skai_widget_active and skai_rulebot_active filters: decide per request whether the chat bubble or the simple assistant appears.
• Settings live in one option (skai_settings), and the admin is built with standard WordPress components.

Source code

The complete, uncompiled source ships inside the plugin. The admin screens are built from src/ with @wordpress/scripts, and package.json and gulpfile.js are included. To rebuild, run npm install and then npm run build. The chat script and stylesheets in assets/ are not compiled and are served as they are.

External services

Surface Kit AI can connect to an external AI service to write replies for the AI chat bubble (AI Widget) and the full-page chat (Chat Page). This is how those features work: the AI service reads the visitor’s question and writes the answer. You choose the service and provide your own API key. Nothing is sent to any service until you choose an AI or “Both” assistant type, connect a service, and turn on the AI Widget or the Chat Page. The simple assistant (Rule Bot) never contacts an external service.

What is sent, and when

• When a visitor sends a message in the AI Widget or the Chat Page, your WordPress server sends the connected service: that message; up to the number of earlier messages from the same chat that you set as the history limit; your instructions and the business information you entered; your site name and tagline; and the model and reply settings. Your API key is sent with the request so the service can authenticate it.
• When an administrator clicks Check it works, the server sends one short test message to the selected service and model.
• When an administrator opens the AI settings or clicks Show all models, the server sends the API key to the service’s model-listing endpoint to fetch the models your account can use.
• Requests are made from your server, not from the visitor’s browser. No visitor IP address, cookie, page address or account detail is added to them.
• A feature with its own AI connection sends the same data to the service chosen for that feature.

Services the plugin can connect to

• OpenAI (api.openai.com). Terms of use, Privacy policy
• Anthropic Claude (api.anthropic.com). Commercial terms, Privacy policy
• Google Gemini (generativelanguage.googleapis.com). Gemini API terms, Privacy policy
• Any OpenAI-compatible API, at a base URL you enter. This includes any provider not listed above, and the settings screen offers one-click presets for the following. Each publishes its own terms of service and privacy policy, which apply to whatever you send it:
  • OpenRouter (openrouter.ai). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Groq (groq.com). Terms of use, Privacy policy
  • DeepSeek (deepseek.com). Terms of use, Privacy policy
  • Z.ai / GLM (z.ai). Terms of use, Privacy policy
  • Zhipu BigModel / GLM (bigmodel.cn). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Alibaba Qwen (alibabacloud.com / qwen.ai). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Moonshot / Kimi (moonshot.ai). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • MiniMax (minimax.io). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Mistral (mistral.ai). Terms, Privacy policy
  • Together AI (together.ai). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Fireworks AI (fireworks.ai). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Cerebras (cerebras.ai). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • SiliconFlow (siliconflow.com). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Perplexity (perplexity.ai). API terms of service, Privacy policy
  • xAI Grok (x.ai). Terms of service, Privacy policy
  • Ollama, LM Studio and vLLM presets point at software running on your own server, so no data leaves your server and no third-party terms apply.

Links in the admin screens. The settings screens link to each provider’s API key page and model documentation so you can find them easily. These are ordinary links that open in your browser when you click them; the plugin does not request those pages itself.

Privacy

• Visitors: the plugin sets no cookies, adds no tracking, loads nothing from third-party servers on your pages, and shows no credit links.
• Rate limits: to stop abuse, a one-way hash of each visitor’s IP address is kept in a temporary WordPress transient for up to one day, only to count AI messages. The address itself is never stored.
• Browser storage: the chat keeps the current conversation in the visitor’s browser (localStorage) so it survives a page reload. It stays on the visitor’s device.
• Conversation storage: off by default. When on, messages and replies are saved in your own database with no page address, account or IP address, and old conversations are deleted after your retention period.
• Privacy policy text: suggested wording is added to Settings → Privacy for you to review and include in your policy.
• Uninstall: deleting the plugin removes all of its tables and options.

Credits

• The admin interface uses the Poppins typeface by the Poppins Project Authors, bundled with the plugin under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 (see assets/fonts/poppins-OFL.txt). It is served from your own site.
• Built with WordPress components and @wordpress/scripts.