Watch: How to ask SalesThumb questions about your shop with AI chat (0:52)
"Ask SalesThumb" is a chat assistant scoped to your own shop's data — customers, quotes, invoices, appointments, and revenue. It isn't answering from general knowledge; each question runs through a tool-use loop that looks up your real records, so "Do we have any unpaid invoices?" comes back grounded in your actual invoice table, not a guess. It lives in the AI Tools hub under the "Sell & convert" section, currently tagged "New," and opens at /app/ai/chat. The hub isn't in the sidebar itself — it's reached as the "AI Tools" tab inside Growth & Marketing (sidebar: Run the shop → Growth & Marketing), which also has an "Open standalone" link straight to the hub at /app/ai; land on the hub first, then click the "Ask SalesThumb" card to get to the chat. Note: Cmd+K in the app currently opens a different feature — "AI Help," a KB-grounded Q&A popup — not this chat or the AI Tools hub.
When you first open it with no messages yet, you'll see four clickable example prompts instead of a blank box: revenue this month, which quotes are still open, unpaid invoices, and what's on the schedule this week. Typing your own question works the same way — Enter sends it, Shift+Enter drops a line break without sending, and the composer placeholder ("Ask about customers, quotes, invoices, revenue…") is a reminder of what it's actually built to answer. While it's working you'll see a "Thinking…" bubble; there's no partial/streaming text, the full reply lands at once.
Reading the answer
Under an assistant reply that pulled from your data, look for a small line with a wrench icon: "Looked at: …" listing which data sources it queried (duplicates are collapsed). It's a quick way to sanity-check that an answer about invoices actually came from looking at invoices. Ask SalesThumb is a Pro feature — on a lower plan you'll see an upgrade prompt instead of a reply. If live AI is temporarily unavailable (for example, your shop's AI allowance for the period is used up), you still get a short fallback reply flagged in amber ("AI isn't enabled for your plan — this is a fallback reply," despite the wording) — that answer didn't come from the real assistant loop, so don't assume it consulted current data.
When it proposes a send or a reschedule
Beyond answering questions, the assistant can propose exactly two actions: sending a customer a message (SMS or email) or rescheduling an appointment. It never does either on its own. When it has a proposal, it doesn't show up as more chat text — it renders as a distinct card below the reply, with its own icon (a message bubble for a send, a calendar for a reschedule), the drafted message body in quotes (for a send) or the old time arrow new time (for a reschedule), and two buttons. The confirm button reads "Send" for a message proposal or "Confirm" for a reschedule — Cancel is on every card regardless of type.
Nothing has actually happened at the point the card appears: the assistant only looked up the real customer or appointment and drafted what it would do. Clicking Cancel is purely cosmetic — it marks the card "Canceled — nothing was sent" and never calls anything server-side. Clicking Send/Confirm is the only path that fires the real action; the button shows "Sending…" while it's in flight, then turns into a green "Sent" (or "Rescheduled") confirmation, or a red error line if the mutation failed. Once a card resolves (sent, canceled, or errored), it stays that way — there's no undo or re-trigger from the same card.
Worth knowing before you rely on it
The conversation only exists in the page's local state — there's no history saved server-side, so refreshing or navigating away clears the thread. That's also why every message you send round-trips the entire conversation so far to the server (it's stateless on the backend by design), not just your latest question.
The hub card describes this tool as "Read-only," which is true for everything except the two proposal types above — it can draft a send or a reschedule, but genuinely can't execute either without you clicking through the confirm card. If you're training staff on it, the useful mental model is: answers are always safe to trust as read-only, and the only thing to double-check before clicking is the proposal card's Send/Confirm button.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Does Ask SalesThumb answer from general knowledge or from my shop's real data?
A: It's scoped to your own shop's data — customers, quotes, invoices, appointments, and revenue. Each question runs through a tool-use loop that looks up your real records, so an answer like "Do we have any unpaid invoices?" is grounded in your actual invoice table, not a guess.
Q: How do I know which data an answer actually pulled from?
A: Look under an assistant reply for a small line with a wrench icon: "Looked at: …" listing which data sources it queried (duplicates are collapsed) — a quick sanity check that an answer about invoices really came from looking at invoices.
Q: Can the chat send a message or reschedule an appointment on its own?
A: No. It can propose exactly two actions — sending a customer a message (SMS or email) or rescheduling an appointment — but it never does either on its own. A proposal renders as a distinct card with Send/Confirm and Cancel buttons; only clicking Send/Confirm fires the real action. Clicking Cancel is purely cosmetic and never calls anything server-side.
Q: What does the amber "fallback reply" message mean?
A: It means live AI was temporarily unavailable when you asked (for example, your shop's AI allowance for the period is used up), despite the "AI isn't enabled for your plan" wording. That answer didn't come from the real assistant loop, so don't assume it consulted current data. On a plan below Pro you won't get a reply at all — Ask SalesThumb shows an upgrade prompt instead.
Q: Does the conversation get saved if I navigate away or refresh?
A: No. The conversation only exists in the page's local state — there's no history saved server-side, so refreshing or navigating away clears the thread. That's also why every message you send round-trips the entire conversation so far to the server, not just your latest question.
Q: Where do I actually find Ask SalesThumb in the app?
A: It's in the AI Tools hub under the "Sell & convert" section. Reach the hub via Growth & Marketing in the sidebar (Run the shop → Growth & Marketing), then its "AI Tools" tab, or use the "Open standalone" link to /app/ai. Cmd+K opens a different feature ("AI Help," a KB-grounded Q&A popup), not this chat.