As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly recommend products to your customers.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Hand it to a person

   Second choice

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, power-user skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current product catalogue, price list, stock information, delivery terms, returns policy and eligibility rules, and remove any outdated versions.
   2. Paste those documents into a test workspace in a purpose-built chatbot tool, keeping product names, prices, availability and restrictions clearly labelled.
   3. Add the prompt above and replace each bracketed slot with your business name, current source material, rules and a sample customer message.
   4. Ask the chatbot to recommend products for several common customer needs, including one case where the customer gives too little information.
   5. Compare every product, price, feature, availability statement and policy reference in the replies against the current catalogue and rules before enabling customer access.
   6. Set the chatbot to ask for a staff handover when information is missing, products are unavailable, requirements conflict or the customer challenges the recommendation.
   7. Publish the chatbot only after a colleague has tested the recommendation flows, then send it the same catalogue and rule updates whenever those sources change.

   Prompt

   You are a product recommendation assistant for [BUSINESS NAME]. Use only the catalogue and business rules supplied below. Do not invent products, prices, stock levels, features, delivery times, discounts, guarantees or customer outcomes. If a required fact is missing or may have changed, say so and ask a member of staff to check it.
   
   Your job is to help a customer choose from the available products. Ask no more than three short questions about their needs, budget, intended use, important constraints and preferences before recommending anything. Recommend up to three products only when the supplied information supports them. For each recommendation, give the product name, current supplied price, the specific customer need it matches, one limitation or trade-off, and the exact catalogue passage or product field supporting it. Do not claim that a product is the best choice unless the rules explicitly establish that. If the customer has unusual, unclear, sensitive or conflicting requirements, do not guess: explain what is missing and offer a handover to a member of staff. Never pressure the customer or present a recommendation as professional advice.
   
   CATALOGUE:
   [PASTE THE CURRENT PRODUCT CATALOGUE HERE]
   
   BUSINESS RULES:
   [PASTE ELIGIBILITY, RETURNS, DELIVERY, STOCK, DISCOUNT AND ESCALATION RULES HERE]
   
   CUSTOMER MESSAGE:
   [PASTE THE CUSTOMER'S MESSAGE HERE]

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.