Research Capabilities (Beta)
By default an AI Assistant answers only from your Knowledge Base. Research capabilities let a single Assistant go further when it needs to:
- Read images a customer sends (photos, screenshots).
- Search the web, with filters that keep it on topic.
- Give deeper answers by combining your Knowledge Base with web results.
All three are Beta, off by default, and available on every plan that already includes AI Assistants. Turning them off returns the bot to plain Knowledge-Base behavior. Because web search and image reading cost more to run, each is priced as a multiple of a normal Knowledge Base query (see Costs).
These settings apply to AI Assistants. Keyword bots and Flows are unaffected.
Where to find them
- Log in to SendSeven and open Automation.
- Open the AI Assistant you want to edit.
- In the bot editor, find the Research capabilities (Beta) section in the Knowledge Base settings.
Each capability has its own control and a short note on what it costs. Nothing changes for your existing bots until you switch a capability on.
Read images customers send
When enabled, the Assistant looks at images attached to an incoming message — a photo of a damaged product, a screenshot of an error, a picture of a receipt — and uses what it sees to answer.
- How to enable: turn on Read images customers send in the Research capabilities section.
- What it does: the bot describes and reads the image, then answers using both the image and your Knowledge Base.
- Channels: works on the channels that deliver image attachments (for example WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Instagram, and the website widget).
Image reading is most useful for support bots. A customer can send a screenshot of an error instead of describing it, and the Assistant can work from what is actually on screen.
Search the web
When enabled, the Assistant can look something up on the web and answer from what it finds, with sources. Web search is designed to stay on the bot's topic — it is not a general-purpose assistant, and it will decline off-topic requests (for example, "write me some code") rather than answer them.
When to search
Choose one of three modes:
| Mode | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Off | The bot only uses your Knowledge Base. This is the default. |
| Only when the Knowledge Base has no answer | The bot searches the web only after your Knowledge Base comes up empty. Recommended. |
| Always search the web | The bot may search the web on every question (still on-topic only). |
If your Knowledge Base is empty, the bot tells the customer there is no Knowledge Base content yet rather than quietly searching the web. Add content first.
Keep results on topic
Two optional filters keep web search focused on your business:
- Allowed domains — restrict the search to specific websites (for example your own domain and a manufacturer's site). Enter plain domains, one per line, without
https://or a path. - Required keywords — words that are added to every web search so results stay relevant (for example your brand name).
The allowed-domains list is an allowlist, and it is fail-closed. If you mean to restrict the bot to specific sites but leave the list empty, the bot skips web search entirely rather than searching the whole web. Either list the sites you want, or leave the restriction off on purpose.
Limits
To keep costs predictable, web search is capped per conversation (you can set the limit, or leave it on the default) and there is an additional daily safety limit per workspace. Once a limit is reached, the bot falls back to a Knowledge-Base answer or offers to hand off to a human.
Grounded answers only
The bot only gives a web answer when the search returns real sources it can cite. If it cannot find a grounded answer, it treats the question as unanswered and escalates instead of guessing.
What the customer sees
When the bot uses the web, the reply carries a "Searched the web" indicator and lists the sources it used, so the customer knows where the answer came from.
Privacy: personal details are removed before searching
When the bot searches the web, the customer's message is sent to a search provider (Google). Before that happens, SendSeven automatically removes obvious personal details from the query — email addresses, phone numbers, and long ID or order numbers — and replaces them with [removed].
For example:
| Query | |
|---|---|
| Customer wrote | Is my order 100482 for [email protected] shipped? |
| Sent to Google | Is my order [removed] for [removed] shipped? |
Everyday terms are kept, so the search still works — for example "red shoes size 41" is sent unchanged. Show this behavior to your own privacy or legal team if web search will run on conversations that may contain personal data.
Deeper answers
When enabled, the Assistant writes a more thorough answer by combining your Knowledge Base with web results and citing its sources. It still stays on this bot's topic — it does not become a general-purpose assistant, and it does not answer from open-ended general knowledge unless you have separately turned off KB-only mode (see Build an Assistant).
Deeper answers build on web search, so a deeper answer that uses the web is priced the same as a web search.
Costs
Web search and image reading do more work than a plain Knowledge Base lookup, so each is billed as a multiple of a Knowledge Base query. The multiplier is shown in the editor next to each control.
| Capability | Cost per answer that uses it |
|---|---|
| Read images | 2× a Knowledge Base query |
| Search the web | 10× a Knowledge Base query |
| Deeper answers | Same as web search when the web is used |
Answers that do not use these capabilities (a plain Knowledge Base reply, a greeting, a keyword match) are billed as before. Knowledge Base queries come out of your shared message pool — see Knowledge Base for how the pool works.
Can I use web search for product search?
Not reliably. Restricting web search to your shop's domain can surface product pages if they are indexed, but a search index is not live inventory: stock, sizes, and prices can be stale, and results are page snippets rather than structured product data. So a request like "red shoes, size 41, in stock?" may return the right page but the wrong availability.
For real product search, put your catalog into the Assistant's Knowledge Base, or connect a structured product source. Use web search for general research and up-to-date reference information, not as an inventory lookup.
Good to know
- Higher latency. Reading an image or searching the web adds a few seconds to the reply. The bot does not always search — it only does so when it needs to — so most replies are unaffected.
- Beta. Behavior and pricing may change while these features are in Beta. Start with one bot, watch how it behaves in the Test panel and in real conversations, then expand.
- On-topic by design. Web search and deeper answers refuse requests outside the bot's purpose. This is intentional — it keeps the Assistant a focused support or sales bot rather than a generic chatbot.
What's next
- Build an AI Assistant — create and configure the Assistant these settings live on.
- Knowledge Base — curate the content the Assistant answers from first.
- Prompt Engineering — keep the Assistant on-brand and on-topic.