AI agent development · Melbourne, AU
AI agents that only say what you've signed off.
We're a small Melbourne studio that builds AI agents, and runs one of our own. The ones we put in front of your customers answer only from facts you've approved, and email a person whatever they can't answer.
Lily answers Benvena's website chat, and we look after her.
Benvena is one of our own products. It gives small and medium businesses Lily, an AI front desk who answers website chat using only facts the business has approved.
In the chat at the top of this page, a visitor with a bad knee asks about beginners' classes. Lily gives the class times because the studio approved them. Nobody approved advice about knees, so she says she can't give it, and the question goes to the studio in a handover email. That email is the screenshot in this section.
We have no client case studies yet, so Lily is the agent we can show you. You can try her yourself before you write to us.
The AI agents we build, and where you can see each one running.
Some are AI assistants that talk to your customers and some help your own people. Each card links to the product where it already runs. We also build apps, Shopify stores and SaaS; see all services.
-
01 · For your customers
A front desk that answers while you're busy
It sits on your website chat and answers the questions people ask after you've locked up, from what you've signed off. A question it can't answer comes to you by email, so the visitor isn't left waiting on a guess. Our services page has more on this kind of agent.
-
02 · For your team
An assistant for questions a search box can't handle
Some questions don't fit a filter. EscapeTo's AI Camping Assistant takes them in plain English or by voice. It answers from EscapeTo's own campsite data, with links to campsites you can open, save or add to a trip. If your team asks questions like that about your own business, we'd build one for them that sticks to your own records.
-
03 · Inside a Shopify store
AI that explains what your store's data shows
Cart Spy is our Shopify app for abandoned carts. Its AI insights summarise what the cart tracking, session replays and heatmaps show, so the merchant has somewhere to start. The merchant still decides what to change, and we'd build yours the same way.
We fence an agent in before it talks to anyone.
The risk with any agent is the confident wrong answer: a price nobody set, or last year's opening hours. These are the rules we build in to stop that, and you can see three of them at work in Benvena.
- 01
It answers only from facts you've approved.
You read each fact before the agent can use it. Anything you haven't approved stays out of its answers, and you can fix a wrong one before it goes live.
- 02
It emails a person when the answer isn't there.
The visitor is told their question is being passed on, and the person you've named gets it in writing, ready for a reply.
- 03
A person sets it up.
We set Lily up for each business by hand, usually within about a week, and we'd take the same care with yours.
- 04
We say what it can't do.
Lily answers in English only for now, and she never takes payments. We'll be as plain about what yours can't do.
Some questions shouldn't be answered from a list of facts at all, like whether a class is safe with a bad knee. We set those up to go straight to a person.
Before we build an AI agent, we decide who answers the hard questions.
The first call settles what the agent may say before we build anything.
Step 1: Talk
A call about what the agent should know. You don't need a brief for it.
You'll haveA written scope, and what goes into the first release.
Step 2: Build
We send you builds to try as it takes shape. Your part is reading the facts and approving the ones it may use.
You'll haveA build to try after each round, with a short note on what changed.
Step 3: Launch
We put it live where your customers or your team will use it.
You'll haveThe agent live, with its handover emails going to the person you've named.
Step 4: Run
Your prices and hours will change, so we keep updating the agent and fixing it once it's live.
You'll haveUs looking after it, the way we look after Lily.
Who this suits, and who would be better off elsewhere.
A good fit if
- Your customers ask the same handful of questions, often when you're with someone else or have gone home.
- You want an assistant built around your own facts and your own way of answering.
- You run a Shopify store and want AI in the admin that points back to the evidence.
- You'd like the agent looked after once it's live, without hiring developers to do it.
Probably not a fit if
- You want an agent that will answer anything, with no approved facts behind it. We won't build that one.
- You need it to give health or injury advice. We'd send those questions to a person.
- Nobody will read the questions it passes on. The handover email only helps if someone answers it.
- You only need a front desk for your website chat or your phone. Benvena may suit you better than a custom build. Read about Lily, our AI receptionist, or sign up at benvena.ai ↗ (opens in a new tab).
What owners ask us about AI agents.
What do you mean by an AI agent?
It's software that reads a question written in everyday words and acts on it. It might answer your customers or your team from what you've told it, or explain what your store's data shows. The ones we build also know when to stop and pass a question to a person.
Will it make things up?
We build it to answer only from facts you've approved. If the answer isn't in those facts, it says so and emails the question to a person. That's how Lily works at Benvena, and you can try her on benvena.ai ↗ (opens in a new tab) before you talk to us. Our services page lists the rules we build to.
What happens when it doesn't know the answer?
It tells the person asking that it will pass the question on, then emails it to the person you've named. At Benvena that's a handover email to the owner with the question in it, ready for a reply.
Do you have client case studies?
Not yet. The agents we can show you are in our own products: Lily at Benvena, the AI Camping Assistant at EscapeTo and the AI insights in Cart Spy. All of them are live, and the case pages show each one at work.
Do you only work with businesses in Melbourne?
No. We're based in Melbourne, Victoria, and a project starts with an email and a call, so you don't need to be nearby.
How much does an AI agent cost?
It depends mostly on what it needs to know and where it runs. Tell us about it on the contact page and we'll write back with what we'd build first.
Can you add an agent to a website or Shopify store I already have?
Often, yes. Lily works on a business's own website chat, and merchants add Cart Spy to their Shopify store from the Shopify App Store. Send us a link to what you have and we'll tell you what we'd do first, or that we're not the right people for it.
Tell us what it should know, and who gets the rest.
A few lines is plenty to start: who the agent would talk to, the questions they ask, and who should get the ones it can't answer. We'll write back with what we'd build first.
This opens your email app. Nothing is sent until you press send.