AI Chatbot Development for UK Businesses: The Complete Guide 2026
What a custom AI chatbot costs in the UK, how long it takes to build, what it actually does that a scripted bot could not, and how to choose a developer.
AI for E-commerce & Retail
Cut Support Tickets, Recover Baskets and Get Found by AI Shoppers
UK online retailers face rising ad costs, thin margins and customers who expect instant answers about orders, sizing and returns. We build AI support agents, order and returns automations and AI-search visibility for Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento stores, and we build WebMCP, the plugin that makes WordPress and WooCommerce stores readable by AI shopping agents.
The Problem
Where a online store loses time and customers
Where is my order?
Most tickets are status, returns and sizing questions that a connected assistant can answer instantly.
Abandoned baskets
Recovery emails are generic and late; nobody answers the question that stopped the purchase.
Manual back-office
Returns, refunds, supplier chasing and listing updates are done by hand across several tools.
AI shopping assistants skip you
ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews recommend competitors whose product data is structured and readable.
What We Build
AI solutions for e-commerce & retail
Order-Aware Support Agent
Answers order status, returns, sizing and stock questions from live store data on web, WhatsApp and email, and hands complex cases to your team.
AI Chatbot Development pricing and detailsReturns, Refunds & Listing Automation
Processes returns within your policy, drafts product descriptions and updates listings and stock across channels.
AI Automation pricing and detailsAI Search & Shopping Visibility
Structured product data, feeds and content so AI assistants and Google AI Overviews cite and recommend your products.
AI SEO & GEO pricing and detailsFast, AI-Ready Storefront
Headless or platform rebuilds that load fast on mobile, convert better and expose clean data to search and AI agents.
Web Development pricing and detailsOutcomes
What changes for your online store
- Routine tickets resolved without an agent
- Baskets recovered with the right answer at the right time
- Back-office hours cut across returns and listings
- Products visible to AI shoppers, not just Google
FAQ
Questions e-commerce & retail ask us
Which platforms do you work with?
Shopify, Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, Magento and BigCommerce, plus marketplaces via their APIs. We confirm your stack and helpdesk (Gorgias, Zendesk, Freshdesk) on the discovery call.
Can the chatbot process a refund on its own?
Yes within rules you set, for example under a value threshold and inside the returns window. Anything outside the rules is routed to a person with the context attached.
How do you make products visible to AI assistants?
Clean product schema, feeds and content structured the way AI models read it, plus tools such as WebMCP for WooCommerce. See our AI SEO & GEO service for the full approach.
How is AI for an online store quoted?
Fixed price after a free discovery call. An order-aware support bot is scoped by which systems it reads from — your store platform, your courier, your helpdesk. Automation is quoted per workflow and AI search visibility runs as a monthly programme. Nothing is billed by the hour.
Guides for e-commerce & retail
What Is GEO? Generative Engine Optimisation Explained for UK Businesses
What GEO actually is, how it differs from SEO, how assistants really retrieve and cite sources, and what it costs to get your business into AI answers.
Custom AI Chatbot vs Off-the-Shelf: Which Is Right for Your UK Business?
Tidio, Intercom and Chatbase offer AI chatbots on published monthly plans; custom-built chatbots avoid per-resolution fees entirely. An honest comparison of which route actually suits a UK business.
Before You Get In Touch
What you can hold us to
Review our own live products, check our company registrations and read the commitments that shape a project. These give you concrete work and clear terms to discuss before booking a call.
Our own product
Writford
A workspace for UK legal firms connecting cited research, matter records, time recording and billing. The research workflow keeps source checking and professional review with the solicitor.
Explore WritfordOur own product
Let AI Browse
Tools for connecting shopping assistants with storefront product, cart and checkout actions. Its WordPress and storefront integrations show the kind of connected web workflows we build.
Explore Let AI BrowseRead the LetAIBrowse case studyWhat the discovery call actually is
Thirty minutes, free, no obligation and no salesperson. You describe what is costing you time or customers, we ask about the systems involved, and you leave with an honest view of whether this is worth doing. We regularly end that call by saying the tool you already pay for covers it.
You own the result
The code, the repository and the accounts are set up in your company name rather than ours, and they are yours on completion and full payment. Nothing runs on infrastructure we control, so ending the relationship does not end the thing we built.
A fixed price, never a day rate
Every project is quoted as a fixed price with a written scope after the call, so an over-run is our problem rather than yours. If the scope changes, we say so and re-quote before doing the work, not after.
Where your data sits
In the UK or EU, under a data processing agreement, kept only as long as you specify. Any model provider we rely on is named as a sub-processor rather than left implicit, and we will tell you plainly where something you have asked for would put a commitment of yours at risk.
What happens when it goes wrong
Agreed before launch rather than negotiated during an incident: what is covered, how quickly we respond, and what counts as new work. Every build has a defined escalation to a person, because the failure that costs you is the one nobody noticed.
Two things you can check
Big Berri Limited is registered in England and Wales, company number 16562429, and registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under reference ZC119995. Both are public registers. Look us up rather than taking our word for it.
See what AI would do for your online store
A free 30-minute discovery call. We map where you lose time and customers today, and give you a fixed price for fixing it.
Book a Free Discovery Call