How a Non-Coder Puts an AI Concierge on a Website

Issue 04 · The front desk

There's an AI answering questions on my website right now. Go ask it something, I'll wait. It's the button in the nav bar. It's called Alfred now, and it has a different job than it had when I wrote this, which I'll come back to at the end.

Last issue I hired an AI employee. That one works for me, in private, in my chat window. This one is the opposite. It works for my visitors, out in the open, while I'm asleep. Same idea, moved to the front desk.

What it actually does

Three jobs, no salary. It answers real questions about what I've built and how I built it, in plain terms rather than vague marketing. When it doesn't know something, it says so instead of guessing. And when someone asks it a question it couldn't answer, it catches that question so I can go and write the answer properly.

● ● ●   someguyandai.com · July 2026

A chat with the AI on someguyandai.com in July 2026: it says plainly that it is an AI

The bot as it answered in July 2026. It says different things now, for reasons at the bottom.

The honest part, because someone should say it

I asked mine "are you a real person?" It said it's an AI, and that you're talking to the thing that does the work. It will not pretend to be me. That's on purpose, and it's half the reason it works.

You're literally talking to the thing that does the work.

It talks. It doesn't act.

Here's the line that keeps it safe: it never books anything on its own, never charges anything, and never invents a price or a promise. If it isn't sure, it says so. That's not the bot being dumb. When a bot speaks for your business, its words are your words, and a made-up price is a real one you now have to honor. "I don't know" is the most important thing it says.

Steal this

→	Give it the whole brief, not a search system. A small business has small knowledge. Put the prices, the policies, and the voice straight into its instructions. Simpler than the fancy setups, and it can't grab the wrong file.
→	Make "I don't know" the main feature. Its number one job isn't answering everything. It's never making anything up, then handing off cleanly. Build that in from the first line.
→	Tell people it's an AI. Say it in the opening line, put a tag on it. It's honest, it's the law now, and people trust it more when it's upfront, not less.
→	Write down what it couldn't answer. A pleasant conversation that ends with the person gone teaches you nothing. The questions it fumbles are a list of the things your site should have said in the first place.

What it costs to run

Pennies. It runs on the cheap fast model, well under a cent per conversation, a few bucks a month at my traffic. The build is the cost. The running is a rounding error.

What changed since I wrote this

In September 2026 I pulled every product and service off the site. So the bot stopped being a salesman. It has a name now, Alfred, it says what it is, and its whole job is to answer what you ask and admit when it can't. Everything above about how to build one still holds. There's just nothing for it to sell you any more, which I'd argue made it better.

Go ask Alfred a question →

If you know someone who wishes their website could answer for itself, send them this one.

Talk soon,
Tim

Some guy. Not an expert. Just building.

There's an AI talking to strangers on my website at 2am

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