IDEA89 AI Shopping Assistant

IDEA89 adds a floating chat widget to your WooCommerce storefront. Shoppers ask it questions in plain language, "what's waterproof under £50?", "do you ship to Ireland?", "what's your return policy?", and it answers from your actual catalogue and site content, then adds the right product straight to the basket when asked. The plugin's job is entirely on the WordPress side: it reads your store and keeps a copy of it in sync with the IDEA89 service, and it prints a small loader script that renders the chat widget on the storefront. All of the AI itself (understanding the question, searching your catalogue, generating the reply) runs on IDEA89's servers, not on your WordPress install. See External services below for exactly what that means for your data. What it syncs

• Products: name, description, price, images, categories, attributes, variations, stock levels, and review excerpts
• Categories: so the assistant understands how your catalogue is organised
• Pages: About, shipping, returns, and other policy pages, so the assistant can answer from them
• Coupons: active, unexpired discount codes, so the assistant can mention live promotions
• Store details: store name, currency, and the context you provide in settings
• FAQs: auto-detected from your content (see Limitations below), with a settings screen to review what was found
• Posts and other public content types: blog posts and any custom post type you opt in, indexed and searched rather than dumped into every reply, so a large blog doesn't overwhelm the assistant

Order tracking (optional) Switch this on and shoppers can ask about an order in the chat instead of emailing you. They see status, items, delivery method and a tracking link where one exists. Order details never reach IDEA89 or any AI provider. The chat panel asks your own site for them, from the shopper's browser, using the login they already have. Signed-in shoppers see their recent orders. Guests can look up a single order with its number and the email address used to place it, limited to four attempts an hour so the form cannot be used to probe for which orders exist. Tracking numbers are read from the official WooCommerce Shipment Tracking extension or AfterShip if you use either. Store finder (optional) Publishes a store finder page at a URL you choose, with a searchable map and your own header and footer around it. Headings, help text and the meta description are all editable, and each store is published as structured data so search engines can read its address and opening details. Your store list is managed in your IDEA89 dashboard. Availability depends on your plan. Personalization (optional) Lets the assistant recognise a returning customer so it can pick up where a conversation left off. Your site signs a short-lived token holding only a customer reference, a group reference and whether the shopper is signed in. No name, email address or order history is sent, the token expires after an hour, and it cannot be forged in the browser because the signing secret never leaves your server. Sync runs in the background via Action Scheduler (bundled with WooCommerce), triggered by product, stock, coupon and content saves, plus a daily full reconcile. Nothing runs until you enter an API key, and nothing blocks a page save waiting on a network call. Every sync is queued and processed asynchronously. What it adds to the storefront A single, asynchronously-loaded script tag that renders the chat widget. It does not touch your theme, does not add page weight to the initial render, and adds products to the WooCommerce cart through the standard Store API, the same cart your theme already shows. The chat panel carries a small "idea89" label in its footer, linking to idea89.com. This is part of the hosted assistant's own interface, the same way an embedded video player carries its provider's mark, and is rendered by the IDEA89 service, not injected into your theme or content. It appears only inside the chat panel, and only when a shopper opens it. What it does not do

• It does not store your product catalogue, page content, or chat transcripts anywhere in your WordPress database. That data lives on the IDEA89 service (see External services).
• It does not modify your theme, checkout flow, or existing cart behaviour.
• It does not require a WordPress.com account, and it does not phone home for anything beyond what is documented below.

1.2.3

• Storefront globals are JSON-encoded. The __IDEA89_WC block (Store API URL, nonce, basket URL) that the assistant reads on boot is now written with wp_json_encode and the same hex-escaping as every other inline value, in place of esc_js, which is meant for attribute context. Same keys, same values; nothing changes for shoppers.
• In-chat checkout page is printed, not buffered. The stripped checkout page is now written the way a page template is: wp_head and wp_footer print themselves and every script element is printed by WordPress's own inline-script function, instead of the whole page being assembled into one string and echoed. Same page, same headers, same bridge messages.

1.2.2

• Widget loader is now enqueued. The storefront loader goes through wp_register_script / wp_enqueue_script with its configuration attached via wp_add_inline_script, instead of a script tag printed in the footer. Same script, same globals, same async behaviour; other plugins and themes can now see and filter it like any other enqueued script.
• Hardened inline JSON. Every value the plugin writes into an inline script (checkout configuration, store finder analytics settings, store JSON-LD, checkout bridge messages) is now JSON-encoded with the characters <, >, &, ' and " hex-escaped, so no configured or merchant-entered value can close the script element early. Structured data and scripts are printed through WordPress's own inline-script functions.

1.2.1

• Assistant name now sets the name shoppers see. The Assistant name field under Appearance used to save a value nothing read; the name above the conversation came from your IDEA89 account. It is now that same name, so setting it here sets what shoppers see and how the assistant refers to itself when asked. Stored in your IDEA89 account rather than in WordPress, so it is the same in both places.
• Checkout display, shared with your IDEA89 dashboard. New field under IDEA89 > Checkout experience. Full window (the default, and how the assistant has behaved so far) gives checkout the whole screen; In the chat keeps checkout inside the assistant panel alongside the conversation. Changing it in WordPress or in the dashboard changes it in both.
• Personalization status is spelled out. Personalization needs two switches on, one in WordPress and one in your IDEA89 dashboard. The settings screen now says which half is on and which is off, so a store where only one is on is no longer told nothing.

1.2.0

• Checkout experience. New setting under IDEA89 > Checkout experience, matching the Magento 2 module. Express handoff is the default: after adding to basket, the assistant shows a basket summary card in chat with one button straight to your checkout. Checkout in chat opens your real WooCommerce checkout inside the assistant panel, with your site's header, footer and navigation stripped away so it fits the panel cleanly. Your payment methods, your shipping rules, your extensions all run exactly as they do on your normal checkout page; IDEA89 never sees a card number. Works whether your checkout page uses the classic checkout shortcode or the WooCommerce Checkout block; a settings screen status line beside the mode select tells you which one your store uses. If your checkout page uses neither, the assistant sends shoppers to it directly instead of showing it in the chat. Native checkout (beta) is also a real, working rung: the assistant collects delivery details in the conversation and places the order itself, on payment methods you choose from an allowlist that is empty by default, so a freshly switched-on store places no orders at all until you explicitly select one. Offline methods (cash on delivery, bank transfer, cheque) are recommended. Existing stores keep today's behaviour unless this setting is changed.
• Agentic Commerce Protocol product feed. New setting under IDEA89 > Agentic Commerce, off by default. Publishes your catalogue (names, descriptions, prices, stock and page links) at a public web address in the Agentic Commerce Protocol shape, so assistants such as ChatGPT can find and recommend your products. Works alongside any checkout experience setting. Does not give anyone access to your orders, customers or payment details, and nothing is published until you turn it on.
• Pinned checkout bar. New "Pinned checkout bar" setting under IDEA89 > Checkout experience, on by default. Shows a full-width bar above the assistant's message box reading "Checkout, N items, total" whenever the shopper's basket has items. Tapping it goes through the same checkout mode you already chose above; it is simply a second, always-visible way to reach checkout.

1.1.1

• A WordPress install in a subfolder is now recognised as its own IDEA89 account, separate from a shop at the domain root. Test Connection names the site an API key belongs to, so a key pasted from the wrong site on the same domain is caught during setup rather than after a sync.

1.1.0

• Order tracking. Shoppers can ask "where is my order?" in the chat and see their own order status, delivery progress and tracking links. Order details are read by the shopper's browser directly from your site and are never sent to IDEA89 or to any AI provider. Signed-in shoppers see their recent orders; guests can look up one order with its number and the email used to place it. Off by default.
• Store finder page. Publishes a searchable map of your stores at a URL you choose, styled to your brand and using your own theme's header and footer, with structured data so search engines can read your store details. Off by default.
• Shopper personalization. Lets the assistant recognise a returning customer, using a short-lived signed token that carries no name, email address or order history. Off by default.
• Dashboard settings such as map provider and brand colour are now read from your IDEA89 account, so they are set once for every storefront you run.

1.0.3

• Text domain now matches the plugin slug, so WordPress can load translations for the plugin.
• Removed the redundant load_plugin_textdomain() call.

1.0.2

• The plugin and author links in the plugin header now point to different pages, as WordPress requires: the plugin link goes to the plugin's own repository, the author link to idea89.com.

1.0.1

• The "WooCommerce required" notice now appears only on the dashboard and plugins screens, and can be dismissed, instead of showing on every admin page.
• Declares its WooCommerce dependency through the Requires Plugins header on WordPress 6.5 and later.
• Documents the assistant's footer label and why the widget is served from IDEA89 rather than bundled.

1.0.0

• Initial release. Catalogue, category, page, coupon, FAQ and content sync; storefront chat widget with WooCommerce Store API add-to-cart; admin settings with Test Connection and Sync Now.