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AI Assistant (Big Brother)

The AI Assistant — branded as Big Brother — is a natural language chat interface that helps you manage your product catalog, inventory, categories, pricing, and more. Instead of navigating menus and forms, just tell it what you want in plain English.

Accessing the AI Assistant​

Navigate to the admin panel and look for Big Brother in the navigation, or go directly to /admin/ai_assistant.

Requirements:

  • Admin or Manager role
  • ANTHROPIC_API_KEY must be configured (a warning banner appears if missing)

What It Can Do​

Big Brother has 50+ tools organized into categories:

Product Management​

  • Search products by name, SKU, barcode, brand, or variation name
  • Create products (simple, variable with variations)
  • Update prices, stock levels, descriptions, cannabis details
  • Rename, activate/deactivate, or delete products
  • Merge duplicate products into one
  • Bulk operations — create multiple products or tiers in a single request

Categories & Organization​

  • List, create, update, and delete categories (unlimited nesting)
  • Assign products to categories
  • Bulk categorize products

Quality Tiers & Weight Presets​

  • Create and manage quality tiers (e.g., AAAA, AAA, Budget) with pricing matrices
  • Create and manage weight presets (1g, 3.5g, 7g, etc.)

Brands & Modifiers​

  • Create and manage brands
  • Create modifier lists (e.g., "Add-ons") with options

Cannabis Features​

  • Search the strain library (4,000+ strains with THC, CBD, effects, terpenes, images)
  • Auto-fill strain data when creating flower products
  • Update cannabis details (strain type, THC%, CBD%, terpene, effects)

Inventory & Suppliers​

  • View low stock alerts and inventory analysis
  • Manage suppliers
  • Create and track purchase orders
  • Receive purchase orders

Sale Campaigns​

  • Create discount campaigns (percentage, fixed amount, BOGO, freebie)
  • Add/remove products from campaigns
  • Enable/disable campaigns

Customers & Loyalty​

  • Search customers, view purchase history
  • Adjust loyalty points
  • Create loyalty tiers and rewards

Global Product Catalog​

When creating products, the system automatically checks a shared global catalog for matching templates. If a product like "Blue Dream" exists in the catalog, its description, cannabis details, brand, compliance fields, and more are auto-filled — saving you from manual data entry.

When searching for a product that doesn't exist in your store, catalog matches are shown as available templates.

How It Works​

Sending Messages​

Type your request in the chat box at the bottom, or use the microphone button for voice input. You can also drag and drop images (up to 3, max 5MB each) to include product photos.

Examples of natural requests:

  • "Add Blue Dream to Flower, $45, 100g stock"
  • "Show me products with low stock"
  • "Set the price of OG Kush to $50"
  • "Create a quality tier called Premium at $15/g, $50/eighth"

Confirmation Modals​

When Big Brother wants to make a change (create, update, delete), a confirmation modal appears showing exactly what will happen. You can:

  • Review all the details before confirming
  • Edit fields directly in the modal (name, price, stock, categories, etc.)
  • Cancel if it's not what you wanted
  • After cancelling, a Retry button appears to re-open the same action

Read-only operations (search, list, get details) execute automatically without confirmation.

Undo Support​

After any action is confirmed, an Undo button appears. Click it to reverse the change. This works for price updates, stock changes, product creation, renaming, and more. The only exception is product deletion (soft-delete can be undone by reactivating).

Chat History​

Conversations are automatically saved. The sidebar shows your recent conversations — click any to resume where you left off. Use the New Chat button to start fresh. Conversations can be deleted by hovering and clicking the trash icon.

Voice Features​

Voice Input​

Click the microphone button to speak your request. The system uses your browser's speech recognition. A red pulsing indicator shows when it's listening. Speech stops automatically after 1.5 seconds of silence.

Voice Responses​

Toggle the speaker icon to enable/disable text-to-speech for assistant responses. This setting is remembered across sessions. Voice responses are off by default.

Keyboard Shortcuts​

ShortcutAction
EnterSend message
Ctrl+N / Cmd+NNew conversation
EscapeClose confirmation modal (cancels action)

Usage Limits​

Usage depends on your subscription tier:

TierMonthly Messages
Storefront Free50
Storefront Commerce200
POS (Full)Unlimited

The sidebar shows your current usage. A progress bar changes from blue to amber (70%) to red (90%) as you approach your limit.

Tips​

  • Be specific — "Add OG Kush to Flower at $12/g with 50g stock" works better than "add a product"
  • Bulk requests — "Add Blue Dream, Gelato, and Ice Cream Cake to Top Shelf" creates all three in one confirmation
  • Quality tiers first — When setting up a new menu, create your tiers first, then add products to them
  • Use the strain library — Products named after real strains automatically get THC, effects, terpene data, and images
  • Check the modal — Always review the confirmation modal before confirming, especially for bulk operations