AI shopping assistant for your online store: AURA in CloudCart

In short: AURA is CloudCart's AI shopping assistant, delivered as three apps. Aura Chat sells in a chat window and is switched on under Apps → Aura Chat with prepaid credit that never expires. Aura Search finds products by meaning and despite typos, from €9/month for 5,000 searches. Aura Studio writes descriptions, SEO texts and translations with the tokens in your plan.

This guide covers the setup of all three, what they cost and how to see what each one sells. Menu and field names are exactly as the CloudCart admin shows them, and prices match the AURA, Aura Chat, Aura Search and pricing pages. What AI can do for a store in general is in AI for your online store: 12 tasks AI does for you.

What is an AI shopping assistant?

An AI shopping assistant is software that understands questions in natural language and answers or acts with the store's own data: products, prices, stock and orders. In a CloudCart store two kinds work side by side: AURA, which talks to shoppers and writes your content, and the AI agent, which works for the owner.

Type of AI assistant	Who it talks to	Example task	In CloudCart
Chat assistant in the storefront	The shopper	"Which humidifier suits a 20 m² room?", "Where is my order?"	Aura Chat
AI site search	The shopper, in the search box	"refridgerator" finds "Refrigerator"	Aura Search
AI for content	Your team in the admin	Descriptions and translations for a whole category	Aura Studio
AI agent that runs the store	The owner	"Cut 15% off everything in Winter until Sunday."	Claude Code, ChatGPT/Codex, Gemini CLI or Cursor with a PAT token

AURA is switched on from the admin and needs no outside software. The AI agent receives an access key (a PAT token) from the owner under Settings → PAT Tokens, with Read Only, Full Access or Custom Permissions. How much time it saves is in why an AI agent for your online store pays off. Rule-based chatbots and AI chat are compared in chatbots for online stores.

What is AURA in CloudCart?

AURA is the shared name of CloudCart's AI tools: Aura Chat and Aura Search work in the storefront, Aura Studio in the admin. Aura Chat answers only from your catalog, prices, stock, published pages and orders. It does not invent a product, a price or a policy, and it reads other websites only when the product research agent looks up a missing specification.

Tool	What it does	Admin path	How you pay
Aura Chat	Recommends products with "Add to basket", gives order status, takes return requests, issues personal discount codes	Apps → Aura Chat	Prepaid credit that never expires
Aura Search	Searches by meaning and by words, tolerates typos, shows results while the shopper types	Apps → Aura Search	Monthly plan: €9, €19 or €39
Aura Studio	Product and category descriptions, SEO texts, reading photos, translations	Apps → Cloudio	Tokens from your plan plus extra packs

Aura Studio appears in the menu under its app name Cloudio, and Aura Search under the internal name Advanced Search in the address /admin/apps/advanced_search.

Which languages AURA works in

Aura Chat replies in the language the shopper writes in, so a shopper from Austria can ask in German and one from Poland in Polish. The window's built-in labels exist in English and Bulgarian, while texts you write yourself (opening questions, proactive messages, the line under the message box) can be in any language. Aura Search keeps one index per store and per language, with built-in word lists for English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Dutch, Hungarian, Romanian, Greek and more. A separate store per country, with its own language and currency, is matched by its own rules. Setting those stores up is in multiple languages, currencies and stores.

Who is AURA for, and when does it help?

AURA helps most where shoppers ask the same questions or search with words that differ from your catalog:

• Questions before buying. "Which one is quieter?" Aura Chat compares models and recommends one with a reason.
• Questions after buying. "Where is my order?" Aura Chat checks it by order number and checkout email.
• Searches with no result. Shoppers type "wasing machine" or "nespreso". Aura Search finds the product and lists the words that find nothing.
• A large catalog without texts. 2,000 products with no descriptions and no German or Italian version. Aura Studio writes them as one task.

A small store with 20 products can start with Aura Chat alone. Aura Search pays off once the catalog grows and shoppers search often.

How to set up Aura Chat step by step

Aura Chat is installed from Apps → Aura Chat with the Install button and appears in the storefront right away, with a small starter credit. A new store starts with every skill off: the chat greets shoppers and answers from your delivery, returns and warranty pages, but does not search the catalog yet.

1. Install the app. The Enable / Disable button in the header pauses the chat without losing settings.
2. Set the look in Settings. Name, brand colour, position, product card layout and up to 6 opening questions.
3. Switch on skills in Knowledge & Skills. Five switches: Finding products, Advising on products, Orders, Returns and Promo codes.
4. Set catalog rules. Keep low-stock products, products below a price, or chosen categories, brands and tags out of recommendations.
5. Write instructions. Up to 8,000 characters on tone and what to recommend, for example "Ask what the device is for before recommending one."
6. Set up Proactive Sales. The starter rule asks "Can I help you with something at {store}?" after 10 seconds on a page.
7. Top up credit. Buy more credits sits in the header of every tab. Credit is added once payment goes through.

Important: the Returns skill needs the Aftercare app, and page-type conditions in Proactive Sales need the Datalayer app. Both tabs show a warning and an Install button.

The five Aura Chat skills

Skill	When it is used	What the assistant does
Finding products	"A gift for my dad"	Asks its questions as buttons and shows product cards
Advising on products	Size, compatibility, two options	Says which product and why, and offers to add it to the basket
Orders	"Where is my order?"	Gives status, payment and courier tracking
Returns	The shopper wants to send something back	Sends a 6-digit code to the order email and lodges a request you approve
Promo codes	Hesitation over price, on an occasion you describe	Issues a personal single-use code within your limits

Product skills search the catalog through the same index as Aura Search, without using its monthly quota. In the EU a consumer has 14 days to withdraw from an online purchase without giving a reason (Directive 2011/83/EU, Article 9), and Aura Chat quotes the return period from your own returns page, so keep it accurate. What that page must say is in returns and consumer rights for online stores.

Personal discount codes: you set the ceiling

Aura Chat issues a code only when the Promo codes skill and the Offer discount codes switch are on and the field When a discount may be offered describes an occasion. The type is Percentage, Fixed amount or Free shipping, at most 50%, valid for 1 to 90 days, always with a condition. A shopper gets the smallest amount your rules allow, a second request gets the same code, and reduced products get none. All codes live in one Code PRO discount, so switching it off stops them all. Other discount types are in promo codes and discounts in CloudCart.

Proactive Sales: when the chat speaks first

You write up to 5 rules, each with up to 5 conditions (time on site or page, pages viewed, page type, part of the address) and a message of up to 300 characters. The first matching rule speaks, at most once per visit, and uses credit only if the shopper replies. The list Never speak here holds /checkout, /cart* and /account* so the chat never interrupts a payment. Do not delete it.

What Aura Search does and how to switch it on

Aura Search replaces the standard store search with one that matches by words and by meaning at once: "something quiet for the bedroom" finds a humidifier and a fan. One typo is forgiven in words of 5 to 7 letters, two in longer words, and codes and barcodes match exactly.

1. Choose a plan. Apps → Aura Search → Settings → Plan & usage → Activate (choose a plan).
2. Switch on search by meaning. Settings → Matching & AI → AI Semantic Search. In Search Relevance & Weights add category, brand, attributes and variants, because a new install searches the name only.
3. Switch on analytics. Searches tab → Turn on, or the zero-result report stays empty.
4. Add synonyms and pins. Optimization → Synonyms maps shoppers' words to your catalog's words. Pinned products puts up to 10 products on top for a word, category or brand.

Aura Search plan	Searches per month	Price per month
Starter	5,000	€9
Growth	15,000	€19
Pro	40,000	€39
Extra pack	+10,000	€11

One search is one dropdown request, after 2 characters and a 0.3-second pause. The full results page /search is not counted, but bots are. When the quota runs out, the dropdown falls back to word search until next month, and synonyms and pins keep working. Unused searches do not carry over.

Aura Studio: descriptions, SEO and translations in the admin

Aura Studio writes product and category descriptions, SEO texts and translations from the data already in your store. A single description goes in when you accept it, while bulk generation and auto-translation write straight into the fields.

1. Open Apps → Cloudio to see the token balance, skills and history.
2. Switch on skills one by one. Product descriptions and catalog suggestions are on after install.
3. Run bulk generation on products by category, brand or selection. It needs at least 3,000 tokens.
4. Switch on auto-translation. New and changed content is translated into your chosen languages every 8 hours.

The translator covers the storefront languages, including German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Greek and Hungarian. It costs one token per source character: a 1,000-character description in 5 languages uses 5,000 tokens. On the pricing page the Cloudio AI limit is 10,000 in Baby Pack and 20,000 in Starter Pack, CC Pro and CC Master, with more via Buy more tokens. Writing descriptions that rank is in online store SEO: a 30-point checklist.

How much does AURA cost: credit, searches and tokens

The three tools are paid separately, and Aura Chat credit is not part of an Aura Search plan.

	Aura Chat	Aura Search	Aura Studio
Model	Prepaid credit	Monthly quota	Plan tokens
Expires?	No	Resets monthly	As set by the plan
What uses it	Every reply	Every dropdown request	Every generation
When it runs out	Chat shows "temporarily unavailable"	Word search without AI	New tasks do not start

Aura Chat credit cost depends on the processing behind each conversation, so the exact amount is shown in the Aura Chat credits window. In Usage, Conversations left shows how many conversations the balance covers, based on the last 30 days.

How much does AURA sell: how to measure it

Aura Chat sales are shown in the Overview tab, where an order is credited to a conversation if it follows it from the same browser or signed-in customer. The main figures are Conversations, Customers helped, Orders assisted and Assisted revenue, plus Conversion after a chat and revenue per conversation.

The sharper figure is Encouraged orders: orders containing a product the assistant showed on a card. Example: 600 conversations, 30 orders after a chat and €1,500 Assisted revenue give 5% conversion and €2.50 per conversation. If the month's cost in Usage is below the margin on Encouraged orders, the chat pays for itself.

Aura Search's Overview shows conversion with and without search, and the Searches tab filters zero-result words by device, which matters on phones. More mobile checks are in the mobile version of your online store: 12 checks. Store-wide numbers are in online store conversion rate and ecommerce KPIs an AI agent calculates for you.

AURA and the AI agent: turning chat data into sales

AURA shows what shoppers want, and an AI agent with a PAT token changes the store accordingly with one sentence.

What AURA shows	Where	Sentence to the AI agent
Words that find nothing	Aura Search → Searches → No results, Export	"Add these words to the tags of the matching products and show me the list before saving."
Questions the catalog does not answer	Aura Chat → Overview, What customers ask about	"Fill in the Material attribute for every product in Jackets where it is missing."
Hesitation over price	Aura Chat → Conversations, filter by topic	"Create a 10% discount for the Winter category from Friday to Sunday."

A Read Only key is enough for reports. Give write permissions for one task and delete the key afterwards. Bulk edits are in bulk changes to prices, stock and SEO texts with one sentence.

7 good practices for AURA

1. Complete delivery, returns and warranty pages. Aura Chat answers from them with a link.
2. Switch skills on one at a time and read the first 50 conversations before adding Orders and Promo codes.
3. Hide low-stock products so the assistant does not recommend something that sells out today.
4. Write Proactive Sales rules per page and put the most specific rule at the top.
5. Review zero-result searches weekly and add the product or a synonym.
6. Pin campaign products before Black Friday and unpin them afterwards, since pins do not expire.
7. Keep the AI line under the message box. The EU AI Act requires telling people they are talking to an AI system, with transparency rules applying from August 2026 (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Article 50; European Commission timeline).

The What customers ask about topics are a ready list for your FAQ. Texts AI assistants quote are covered in GEO optimisation for online stores.

Mistakes to avoid

• Returns on without Aftercare: the assistant cannot start or check a return.
• Discount codes on with no occasion described: the chat refuses every discount.
• Search by name only: words from descriptions and attributes find nothing until you add those fields.
• Bulk generation without a test: run it on 5 to 10 products first and check numbers and sizes.

Conversations are deleted after 6 months, even bookmarked ones. They hold personal data such as emails, and the GDPR asks that personal data is kept no longer than needed (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, Article 5). Your privacy pages are covered in GDPR, cookies and legal pages for an online store.

Frequently asked questions

Aura Chat, Aura Search and Aura Studio are switched on from the admin of every CloudCart store, and sales through them carry no commission. Create a store for €1/month for the first 3 months and switch AURA on this week. Questions: support@cloudcart.com.