=== BotBrief – AI FAQ, llms.txt & Business Profile for Chatbots ===
Contributors: inboxxit
Tags: faq generator, llms.txt, ai chatbot, business description, structured data
Requires at least: 5.8
Tested up to: 7.1
Requires PHP: 7.4
Stable tag: 0.20.1
License: GPLv2 or later
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Fact-checked FAQs, business descriptions and llms.txt that help chatbots and AI search answer accurately about your business.

== Description ==

Chatbots give wrong answers when they have to guess. BotBrief gives them the facts.

The moment you activate it, before you add any key, BotBrief scans your site the way an AI assistant reads it and shows what is in the way, free and with no AI:

* whether search engines may list your site, and whether robots.txt blocks ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity from reading it
* whether a sitemap lists your pages
* whether your business details and FAQs are there as structured data
* whether llms.txt is served, and how many pages have a search description

Each problem says how to fix it, and which ones BotBrief fixes for you.

BotBrief also counts the visits AI crawlers and assistants make to your site (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and others, by the name each one gives), so the Overview shows how often AI read your site in the last 30 days, which bots, and which pages. A visit from ChatGPT-User, Claude-User or Perplexity-User means the assistant read your page to answer someone's question. The counts stay on your site: no IP address is kept and nothing is sent anywhere.

Start by seeing where you stand. Enter your business name, industry and location, and in about two minutes BotBrief shows what ChatGPT or Claude says about you, with web search on:

* your AI visibility score: how often it named or recommended you
* AI's shortlist: every business it recommended, ranked, with yours in its place and why it picked each rival
* each answer, and the sources it used

Then build your BotBrief to fix it, and run the check again to see your score change against your first check.

Download the result as a one-page AI visibility report to share with your team or a client: it opens in any browser and prints to PDF.

When you come back, the Overview shows your AI visibility score and the one thing to do next, with the state of your brief, your site, your chatbot and your last AI check. The same score and next step appear in a widget on your WordPress Dashboard.

BotBrief Pro, a paid add-on for agencies and owners who want to track over time, asks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini with up to 30 questions, runs the check every week or month and emails the result, shows the score over time, brands the report with your agency's name, logo and colour, and adds a dashboard of every client site. BotBrief works fully without it.

Tell BotBrief your business name, industry, services, location and (optionally) a contact person. It reads the pages you choose on your own site, lists the facts it finds for you to confirm, then researches the questions customers ask businesses like yours.

Once your facts are confirmed, "Finish my BotBrief for me" does the rest in one click: it researches the questions, answers them, chooses target keywords, writes your descriptions and page descriptions, and publishes to your site if you tick that box. It stops only for questions only you can answer, and you can still go step by step.

Every answer is written only from facts you confirmed. If an answer would contain a price, phone number, year or place that your facts do not support, BotBrief does not publish it. It asks you a quick question instead (Yes / No, a choice, or a short reply). Questions you skip are left out.

The result is one Markdown file, business-profile.md, structured for AI:

* a short summary and guidance for the chatbot on how to use the file
* your services, and what you do NOT offer, so chatbots stop saying yes to everything
* service area, hours, pricing policy, credentials and guarantees
* why customers choose you, backed by proof you provide
* who to hand off to when a customer needs a person
* up to 40 researched questions, answered only from your facts, each under its own heading so knowledge bases keep each question and answer together

Upload the file to any chatbot or AI tool that accepts documents, such as a custom GPT. The Chatbot step also gives you your business info and FAQs to copy into any chatbot that takes them as text, and your FAQs as a CSV file for chatbots that import a spreadsheet. BotBrief works on its own: no other plugin or account is needed.

If you use Inboxxit Lite, a free chat widget, the Chatbot step can also load your business info and FAQs into it in one click and keep them up to date each time you update your site. Its previous info is saved first and can be restored at any time.

The Descriptions & SEO step writes the same fact-checked wording for everywhere your business appears, so search engines and AI assistants recognise one business:

* target keywords: BotBrief suggests service and place phrases, you tick up to 8 or add your own
* a search result description, a Google Business Profile description and an About page
* Instagram, TikTok and X bios and a Facebook Page intro, each within that site's character limit
* a search result description for each page of your site, shown next to the current one; tick the pages you want and apply them to Yoast SEO, Rank Math or All in One SEO, or copy them if you use none

Add links to your online profiles and the file lists them under "Find us online".

When you are ready, publish to your own site with one click:

* an FAQ block (and [botbrief_faq] shortcode) showing your answered questions; "Create FAQ page" makes a draft page with it for you to review
* structured data: your business (LocalBusiness, linked to your online profiles) on the home page and FAQPage on the FAQ page. With Yoast SEO, Rank Math or All in One SEO, it is added to their structured data instead of a second, conflicting copy
* /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt for AI assistants, unless your SEO plugin or a file on your server already provides llms.txt

Your site only changes when you click Publish or Update site. If your facts or answers change afterwards, BotBrief tells you the site is out of date.

After you build your BotBrief, the AI check also compares every answer with your facts. BotBrief asks ChatGPT or Claude (whichever your key is for), with web search on, what it knows about you and who it recommends for your target keywords, then compares each answer with your confirmed facts:

* whether it named you, and whether it recommended you
* statements that may be wrong, with the fact they contradict
* the other businesses it recommended, and the sources it used
* why it picked them (a service, hours, reviews), whether your facts say you offer the same, and a Yes / No question for each reason your facts do not cover
* how to overtake them: what each business AI recommended does, and a plan of 5 to 8 steps, each with the bar to beat, what to do by when, and how you will know it worked
* what to do next: correct a fact, publish, add your profile links, or choose keywords

You bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic API key. A full run usually costs a few cents. On WordPress 7.0 or later, BotBrief can use the key you saved in Settings > Connectors, so you do not need to paste it twice.

== External services ==

BotBrief sends requests to one AI provider, the one you choose on the Setup tab, using your own API key (pasted into BotBrief, or saved in Settings > Connectors):

* OpenAI API (https://api.openai.com). Terms: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use Privacy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy
* Anthropic API (https://api.anthropic.com). Terms: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms Privacy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy

When you save or test a key, BotBrief sends one tiny request (one word, one token) to that provider to check that the key works and the account has credit.

The AI readiness scan uses no AI and no outside service: it loads three addresses on your own site (the home page, /robots.txt and /llms.txt), as Site Health does.

What is sent, and when: only when you click a button that runs a step (Save and find facts, Find customer questions, Answer, Save answer, Write descriptions, Run AI check). It sends the business details you typed, the text of the pages you ticked, and the facts you confirmed. The AI check sends each question (your business name, location or keywords) with the provider's web search turned on, so the provider searches the web for it; your facts are sent only in separate requests that compare its answers with them and with the reasons it gave for other businesses. Contact details you did not tick to show are never sent. Nothing is sent to Inboxxit.

The Chatbot step checks once a day whether Inboxxit Lite is on WordPress.org, and only offers to install it when it is. When you click Install, it downloads Inboxxit Lite from WordPress.org (https://wordpress.org/plugins/inboxxit-lite/) using WordPress's own plugin installer, as Plugins > Add New does.

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= Do I need an AI key to start? =

No. The AI readiness scan runs as soon as BotBrief is active. Building your BotBrief and the AI check need your own OpenAI or Anthropic key.

= Does BotBrief make up answers? =

No. Questions are researched, but answers come only from facts you confirmed. An answer containing a number, contact detail or place name your facts do not contain becomes a question for you instead.

= Do I need Inboxxit? =

No. BotBrief works on its own. The file, the business info and the FAQs work with any chatbot or AI tool, and loading them into Inboxxit Lite is optional.

= Does BotBrief change my site? =

Only when you ask it to. Apply writes the meta description of the pages you ticked into your SEO plugin. Publish shows your answered FAQs wherever you add the FAQ block, adds structured data, and serves llms.txt. Remove from site takes the published FAQs, structured data and llms.txt away again.

= Does the AI check show what every AI assistant says? =

No. It asks one assistant, the one your key is for, once. Answers vary between assistants and from day to day, and AI assistants pick up changes to your site over weeks, so treat it as a snapshot and run it again later.

= What does a run cost? =

You pay your AI provider directly. A full run with the default model usually costs a few cents. The AI check also pays for web searches (OpenAI and Anthropic both charge about 1 US cent per search), usually 1 to 4 cents per question.

= Why does it say AI has not visited my site? =

BotBrief counts the requests that reach WordPress. Pages a full-page cache or a CDN serves on its own never reach WordPress, so those visits are not counted. Robots.txt rules that block AI crawlers also stop the visits.

= Is my API key safe? =

It is stored encrypted in your WordPress database and only sent to the provider you choose.

== Changelog ==

= 0.20.1 =
* AI check tab: what BotBrief Pro adds, with a link to it.
* Shared reports link to the BotBrief page.

= 0.20.0 =
* The plan to overtake the businesses AI recommends now has a step for each thing AI weighs: services, reviews, proof, credentials, area served, hours, prices, how easy you are to contact, and listings. The steps the answers show come first.
* AI's shortlist says which steps beat each business, with links to them.
* Each new check can change the business name, industry, location and the searches it asks about, right on the AI check tab.
* With no searches chosen, the check asks for a recommendation two ways, so the plan reads more than one answer.

= 0.19.1 =
* Deleting BotBrief still removes everything it stored, now through WordPress's uninstall hook instead of an uninstall.php file.

= 0.19.0 =
* AI's shortlist says what each business AI recommended does, on its own: services, review count and rating, years, areas, hours, with the numbers the answers give.
* How to overtake them is a longer plan: 5 to 8 steps, each on a different thing AI weighs (services, reviews, proof, credentials, area, hours, prices, contact, listings), never two alike. Each step shows the bar the businesses ahead set and a step that beats it, for example 55 reviews averaging 4.7 against 48 averaging 4.6, with a deadline and how you will know it worked. Steps the answers did not mention but AI weighs say so.
* Fixed: a step the AI returned in parts was left out, so a plan could show no "Do this".

= 0.18.0 =
* How to overtake them: the reasons AI picked other businesses are now a step-by-step plan named after the business to beat. Each step says what the answers say that business does, one SMART step to beat it (what to change and where, with a number and a deadline) and how you will know it worked. What you already have but AI cannot see comes first, since it is the quickest to fix. The report has the plan too.

= 0.17.0 =
* AI's shortlist: the AI check now ranks every business AI recommended when customers asked for one, with yours in its place and highlighted, how often each was picked, why AI picked each rival, and your share of the recommendations. It leads with where you stand, for example "AI recommends Island Plumbing more often than you". The report shows it too.
* With several assistants (BotBrief Pro), each question is one row with every assistant's verdict, and their answers inside.

= 0.16.0 =
* AI visits: the Overview shows how often AI crawlers and assistants read your site in the last 30 days, which ones, what each does (answering someone's question, indexing for AI search, or collecting training data) and the pages read most. Counted on your site only, with no IP addresses, even before you add a key.
* For add-ons: the ChatGPT and Claude web searches can run as if from a given town.

= 0.15.1 =
* Page descriptions: pages whose description is already in your SEO plugin say so, and once every one is there the Apply button gives way to a line saying it, instead of a button that could only answer "Tick at least one page first". The success message names the SEO plugin.

= 0.15.0 =
* Free AI readiness scan, with no key: BotBrief opens on what an AI assistant finds on your site (search engines allowed, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity not blocked in robots.txt, sitemap, business and FAQ structured data, llms.txt, page descriptions), with how to fix each problem. It runs again after you publish, and the Dashboard widget shows the last result until you add a key.

= 0.14.0 =
* The Chatbot step works with any chatbot: copy your business info and FAQs, download the FAQs as a CSV file, or use business-profile.md. Loading them into Inboxxit Lite is optional, and only offered when Inboxxit Lite is installed or available on WordPress.org.
* Fixed an error on the Chatbot step with Inboxxit Lite 1.13.0 and later.
* The Overview no longer suggests setting up a chatbot, and "Show the chat on my site now" starts unticked.

= 0.13.0 =
* The monthly check, its email, the score history and the "Prepared by" report line move to BotBrief Pro, a paid add-on, which also asks Perplexity and Gemini, runs deeper checks and adds an agency dashboard. The AI check, the report and everything else stay free.
* The Overview shows when you last ran the AI check.
* Hooks for add-ons: botbrief_check_items, botbrief_pre_search_answer, botbrief_check_finished, botbrief_report_brand, botbrief_report_sections, botbrief_check_cards, botbrief_overview_tiles, botbrief_next_action.

= 0.12.0 =
* AI check: "Why AI picks them" lists the reasons the answers gave for other businesses, marks each one you offer too, and turns each reason your facts do not cover into a Yes / No question on the Questions tab. It costs one more short AI request per check, with no web search.
* The Overview suggests answering these questions, and the report lists the reasons.

= 0.11.0 =
* New Setup: choose OpenAI or Anthropic with a three-step guide to getting a key, see what BotBrief costs, and save a key only after a one-token test shows it works. A wrong key or an account with no credit gets a clear fix with a link.
* Test key checks the key in use, including one from Settings > Connectors or Inboxxit Lite.

= 0.10.0 =
* Finish my BotBrief for me: after you confirm your facts, one click researches and answers the questions, chooses keywords, writes your descriptions and page descriptions, and can publish to your site, with live progress on the Overview.

= 0.9.0 =
* Overview: your AI visibility score, your next step and the state of your brief, site, chatbot and monthly check, in one place. Returning visits open here.
* A BotBrief widget on the WordPress Dashboard with your score and next step.

= 0.8.0 =
* Shareable AI visibility report: download the check as a one-page report that opens in any browser and prints to PDF, with an optional "Prepared by" line.
* The monthly check email now attaches the report.

= 0.7.0 =
* Monthly AI check: BotBrief can run the AI check every 30 days and email you your score, how it changed, who AI recommends instead and what may be wrong. Off until you turn it on.
* A chart of your AI visibility over time.

= 0.6.0 =
* New Chatbot step: install Inboxxit Lite and load your BotBrief into it in one click, with a preview built from your own answers. The chatbot is kept up to date when you update your site, and its previous info can be restored.

= 0.5.0 =
* Start with the AI visibility check: right after adding your key, see what AI says about your business with just its name, industry and location.
* AI visibility score, the businesses AI recommends instead of you, and the change since your first check.
* Answers are shown as plain text instead of raw Markdown links.

= 0.4.1 =
* AI check: an answer that says it could not find your business no longer counts as naming you, and only statements about your business are listed as possibly wrong.
* AI check: recommendation questions include your location.
* Anthropic: reads the whole reply when Claude starts with a thinking block, and turns thinking off to keep runs fast and cheap.

= 0.4.0 =
* AI check: asks ChatGPT or Claude, with web search, what it knows about your business and who it recommends, compares the answers with your facts, and lists what to fix.

= 0.3.1 =
* Uses the OpenAI or Anthropic key saved in Settings > Connectors (WordPress 7.0+) when you have not pasted one into BotBrief.

= 0.3.0 =
* Publish to your site: FAQ block and shortcode, LocalBusiness and FAQPage structured data (merged into Yoast SEO, Rank Math or All in One SEO when present), /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt.
* The Export step shows whether the site is up to date, with Update site.

= 0.2.0 =
* New Descriptions & SEO step: keyword suggestions, social bios, and page descriptions you can apply to Yoast SEO, Rank Math or All in One SEO.
* Online profile links, listed in the file under "Find us online".

= 0.1.2 =
* Descriptions that fail the fact check get one rewrite, and the Export tab says why any is left out.
* Character limits are enforced.
* "Do you also offer" questions are grouped into tick boxes.

= 0.1.1 =
* Answer every question with one save; drafts are kept if the page reloads; new layout.

= 0.1.0 =
* First release.
