Olvio gives wrong or generic answers
Olvio's AI answers shoppers from your store's own content: your products and collections, your store pages, blog articles and policies, and what you add in AI Setup and in product notes. When an answer is wrong, vague or generic, the cause is usually information that is missing, outdated or hard for the AI to find. This article helps you find the cause and fix it.
Start with the conversation
Before changing anything, read the exchange that went wrong:
Open Conversations in the Olvio app menu.
Find the chat in the list. To narrow it down, search for words from the shopper's first question or the product title in the Search questions or product field. The list and its search cover your most recent conversations, so look for the chat soon after it happens.
Click the row to read the transcript, and compare the shopper's question with Olvio's reply. In a long chat, Olvio keeps only the most recent messages, so the transcript starts partway through and the search only matches the earliest shopper question still kept. See Read your Conversations list and transcripts.
Then open the Unanswered tab at the top of the page. It lists the product questions the AI couldn't answer in the chat on your product pages, grouped by product. See Find and fix knowledge gaps on the Unanswered tab.
Match what you see to a fix:
The AI says a product detail isn't available: add the detail to the product. See Add missing product details below.
The AI gets a product fact wrong: correct the product's description, metafields or note, or delete an outdated knowledge file.
The AI can't answer about delivery, returns or other store-wide topics: check your store pages and policies, or add a knowledge file.
The AI doesn't find or recommend a product you sell: check the product's status and your catalog sync.
The answers are accurate but generic about your brand: expand your Business description.
The tone, length or recommendations don't suit you: adjust your Conversation rules.
The AI replies in the wrong language: see The widget or the AI uses the wrong language.
Add missing product details
When the AI tells a shopper that a product detail isn't available, or refers them to your support for a fact about a product, the question usually appears on the Unanswered tab. This is the most direct list of what to add.
In Conversations, open the Unanswered tab.
On the product's card, click Add info. The product opens in your Shopify admin.
Add the missing fact to the product, for example in its description, in a product metafield or in its
custom.olvio_knowledgenote.Click Save in Shopify.
Back on the Unanswered tab, click the check mark button (Mark as done) on the question's line. The question is removed from the list.
For each product, the AI reads its title, type, vendor, tags, collections, price, description, options and variants, including whether each variant is in stock, and its metafields. Keep in mind:
Very long descriptions and metafield values are shortened, so put the details shoppers ask about most near the top.
The AI doesn't read metafields from review apps, or metafields that point to something else, such as a file, another product or a page.
The AI doesn't see what's in your product images, so write down in text anything shoppers need to know.
Olvio syncs product edits automatically. If the chat still gives the old answer a few minutes after you save, especially when you only changed a metafield or the product's note, click Resync now on the Dashboard (click Olvio in the app menu). You can resync once per day. If Resync now is grayed out, hover over it to see when it's available again. See Resync your product catalog, Find and fix knowledge gaps on the Unanswered tab and What sources Olvio reads.
Add notes for a single product
Some facts shoppers ask about aren't in the product description: how it fits, what it works with, how long to use it. Write them in the product's custom.olvio_knowledge metafield. Use the Rich text type; plain text types also work.
Olvio doesn't create this metafield for you. Create its definition once in your Shopify admin: open any product, click Add definition in the Metafields section, enter a Name such as Olvio knowledge, check that Namespace and key reads exactly custom.olvio_knowledge (edit it if it doesn't), click Select type and choose Rich text, then click Save. The field is then available on every product.
To write a product's note, open the product, click the field in the Metafields section (click View all if you don't see it), enter your note, then click Save.
The AI trusts this note above the product's other information, including its description. An outdated note therefore leads to wrong answers, even when the description is correct: keep notes up to date, and clear the field when a note no longer applies. See Add product-specific notes with the custom.olvio_knowledge metafield.
Add store-wide information
Olvio reads the pages, blog articles and policies published on your online store, such as your About or FAQ pages and your refund and shipping policies. In the chat on your product pages, when a shopper's question matches something you've written there, Olvio gives that passage to the AI. There's nothing to set up. Keep in mind:
After you choose a plan, Olvio first reads your pages, blog articles and policies at its next daily check. On a store with many pages, this first read can take a few days. A page or blog article you publish later is usually read at the next daily check.
Olvio reads your store in its default language.
An edit you save to a page or blog article in Shopify is usually picked up at Olvio's next daily check. An edit to text that lives in your theme, such as a section added in the theme editor, can take up to about a month, sometimes a little longer, and a policy edit about a week or a little longer. Resync now doesn't re-read your pages.
Olvio Advisor (Growth and Scale plans) doesn't use your pages, blog articles or policies.
For information that isn't published on your storefront, for a change that can't wait, or for content Olvio Advisor should use, open AI Setup:
Knowledge files: upload documents such as a size guide, care instructions, warranty terms or an FAQ built from your support tickets. Supported formats are PDF, DOCX, TXT, MD and CSV, up to 50MB. For spreadsheets, save as CSV.
External web pages: add public web pages by their address, for example a FAQ or a guide on another website. Olvio refreshes them automatically, normally every night.
Your plan sets how many knowledge files and how many external web pages you can add. A new or deleted file or page reaches the chat within a few minutes, usually from the next message a shopper sends. Olvio gives priority to your most recently added files and pages, so if you add a lot of content, older entries may not be used. Delete documents that are out of date: a file that contradicts your product pages can cause wrong answers. See Add knowledge files and web pages to Olvio's knowledge base.
If a product isn't found or recommended
When a shopper asks for another product, the AI only recommends products with the Active status in Shopify. Draft and archived products are never recommended.
Also check the catalog banner on the Dashboard (click Olvio in the app menu):
Some products aren't fully indexed: some active products aren't yet searchable by Olvio. Click Resync now.
Catalog sync in progress: a sync is running. Wait for it to finish, then test again.
Catalog sync failed: click Retry sync.
Describe your business
If answers are accurate but could come from any store, the AI needs more context about your brand. In AI Setup, fill in the Business description, up to 10,000 characters.
A weak description: We sell clothes online.
A stronger description: Northfield Outfitters makes waterproof hiking jackets and trousers for cold, wet climates. Every jacket uses a three-layer recycled membrane and taped seams, and comes with a lifetime repair guarantee. Most of our customers hike in Scotland and Scandinavia. We ship across Europe within 3 working days and accept returns within 30 days.
Cover what you sell and who it's for, what sets your products apart, and your headline policies. In Categories / Keywords, add up to 30 keywords, of up to 80 characters each, for your areas of expertise.
Click Save in the save bar. The message Configuration saved confirms it, and the chat uses the change within about a minute. See Configure your AI Setup.
Adjust your conversation rules
The Conversation rules section of AI Setup has two lists, Do and Don't. Each list holds up to 20 rules of up to 500 characters each. Rules are the most precise way to change how the AI behaves in a specific situation. As the section advises, state rules positively whenever possible. For example:
If the AI suggests a variant that is out of stock, add to Do: When the size or color a shopper wants is out of stock, suggest a similar variant that is in stock.
If the AI recommends too many products, add to Do: Recommend at most two products in a single answer.
If the AI goes into a topic you must stay out of, add to Don't: Never make medical or therapeutic claims about our products.
Your rules take priority over Olvio's default tone, length and formatting. They can't change the language the AI replies in on your product pages, and they can't make the AI reveal your setup.
Rules change how the AI answers, not what it knows. If a fact is missing or wrong, add or correct the information instead of writing a rule. See Write effective conversation rules.
If the AI states something that isn't in your data
Olvio's built-in instructions tell the AI to state only facts that are in your product data and store content. When a detail is missing, especially a figure such as a duration, a quantity or a percentage, the AI is told to say that the information isn't specified rather than guess. AI models can still get things wrong occasionally.
When it happens:
Check whether the wrong fact comes from your own content, such as an old knowledge file, an outdated product note or a page that contradicts the product description, and correct it.
If the fact is missing, add it to the product or to your knowledge files.
If the problem keeps coming back on a specific topic, add a rule for that situation.
Some answers are expected rather than wrong: the AI can't look up an order or its delivery status, so it refers shoppers to your support for those questions.
Try a different Claude model
If your product information and AI Setup are complete and answers to more complex questions, such as detailed product comparisons, still fall short, try a more capable model:
Open API Key in the Olvio app menu.
In the Claude model menu, choose Claude Sonnet 5 — balanced quality + cost or Claude Opus 5 — best quality, highest cost. The default is Claude Haiku 4.5 — fastest, lowest cost (recommended).
Click Save in the save bar. Olvio checks that your Anthropic account can use the model, then shows Settings saved.
The selected model is used for every chat, suggestion, and advisor turn, and Anthropic bills each request at that model's price. See Anthropic's pricing page and Choose your Claude model.
Check your fix
Save your change in Shopify or in AI Setup, then wait a few minutes.
Open the product page in a new private (incognito) window. The widget remembers an open chat in the same browser tab, and a fresh conversation shows the answer a new shopper would get.
Ask the same question again.
If the answer still uses information you changed on a product, see the resync note in Add missing product details above.
Edits to your store pages, blog articles and policies take longer to reach the chat (see Add store-wide information above). To test a change sooner, add it in AI Setup and state it plainly, because the chat can still see the old text until Olvio reads the page again.