Abilities are the things Convi can actually do during a conversation — search products, track orders, hand a chat over to a human, manage the cart, search the web. They live under Train → Abilities. This article explains the full ability catalog and how to configure each one.
In this article
What an ability is
The Abilities screen at a glance
Always-on abilities
Opt-in abilities
Risk badges — what they mean
Configuring an ability
Order cancellation modes
Web search domain controls
Handover modes
Prerequisites
Plan gating
Requesting a new ability
What an ability is
A capability the assistant can call mid-conversation. Without abilities, Convi can answer questions from its knowledge base. With abilities, it can search your catalog, look up real-time order status, cancel an order, change a shipping address, escalate to your team — actions on real store data.
Each ability:
Has its own toggle (some are always on).
Has a risk badge that signals how much it can affect store state.
Optionally has a Custom prompt appended to its instructions.
Optionally has a configuration panel with mode toggles, scenarios, or filters.
The Abilities screen at a glance
Open Train → Abilities. At the top, a callout banner reads:
"Abilities are skills Convi uses to act on your store. Low-risk abilities are safe to enable right away. Higher-risk ones — like cancellations and address edits — change the customer's order, so review them carefully before turning them on."
Below the banner, a grid of ability cards. Each card shows:
The ability's name and one-line description.
A status badge: Active / Inactive / Always on.
A risk badge: Higher risk / Some risk (low-risk abilities have no badge).
A Used count — how often the assistant has invoked it.
A Configure button on configurable abilities.
Always-on abilities
Three abilities are always on; they can't be disabled because they're foundational to a useful assistant:
Products search — "Allow customers to search for products in chat." (Low risk.) Powers semantic discovery across your catalog.
Knowledge search — "Allow the AI agent to search the knowledge base and answer user inquiries." (Low risk.) Backs every store-policy question.
Handover to human — "Hand off the conversation to the admin without losing the customer's place, tone, or chat history." (Low risk.) Always present as an escape hatch, even though the behavior is configurable.
Opt-in abilities
The rest start off and you opt in:
Ability | Description | Risk |
Email capture | "Ask the customer for their email when the AI needs it to follow up (refunds, cancellations, tracking updates)." | Low |
Order tracking | "Let customers track orders with an email and order number." | Low |
Cart management | "Let AI add, remove, and update products in the customer's shopping cart." | Medium ("Some risk") |
Web search | "Search the web for shop-related information when the knowledge base doesn't have the answer." | Medium ("Some risk") |
Order cancellation | "Cancel eligible orders promptly and send a clear confirmation to the customer." | High ("Higher risk") |
Edit shipping address | "Let customers update the shipping address of their orders through the chat." | High ("Higher risk") |
Risk badges — what they mean
The badge isn't about how often the ability fires — it's about how much damage a mistake could cause:
Low risk (no badge) — read-only or session-scoped. Safe to turn on once you're comfortable with the assistant's quality.
Some risk (medium) — "this ability acts on the shopper's session (cart, off-catalog answers). Generally safe, but worth reviewing how it behaves before exposing to all shoppers."
Higher risk (high) — "this ability changes shopper data or store state (orders, addresses, refunds). Mistakes can cost real money or break trust. Set clear policies before turning on."
Treat Higher risk abilities as live-fire. Walk through 3–5 realistic scenarios in Evaluate → Playground or Evaluate → Simulations before turning them on.
Configuring an ability
Click Configure on any ability card. The panel slides in from the right with:
The ability's status banner — Active / Off.
A Custom prompt field — "Tell the assistant how to handle this ability — e.g., tone, what to avoid, when to escalate." Optional. Appended to the ability's instructions.
Any ability-specific options (modes, scenarios, domain filtering — see below).
Click Save to apply. A toast confirms: "Ability updated successfully."
Order cancellation modes
Order cancellation has two operation modes:
AI agent decides — "AI agent cancels an order directly in Shopify panel." (This is the recommended mode.)
The admin decides — "Notify the admin via email to cancel an order themselves."
You can also define Cancel order rules — short instructions describing what Convi should do (e.g. "Only cancel orders within 30 minutes of placement", "Never cancel orders that have been picked").
💡 Tip: Start in "The admin decides" mode for the first week or two so you can verify Convi flags the right cases before letting it cancel automatically. Once the flagging is reliable, switch to "AI agent decides".
Web search domain controls
Web search opens an extra panel for Domain filtering — "Control which websites can be used for web search results." Two modes:
Allowed domains only — "Only results from these domains will be used for web search responses." (Recommended for most stores.)
Blocked domains — "Results from these domains will be excluded from web search responses."
Add domains one at a time using the input + Add button. Format: competitor.com (no protocol).
Handover modes
The Handover to human ability has its own configuration:
Handover behavior — Automate (pause the chat, hand over, email the user when admin joins) or Semi-automate (keep the AI chatting and email the admin to decide). See Taking Over from the AI for the full breakdown.
Handover scenarios — short instructions defining when the AI should escalate (e.g. "Refund requests over $200").
Prerequisites
Some abilities require a one-time setup elsewhere before they're useful. These show a small prerequisite line on the card:
Handover to human — "Prerequisite: Handover email configured." Configure in Settings → Notifications.
Order cancellation — "Prerequisite: Cancellation policy written; refund window set." Make sure your refund policy on Shopify is complete and clear.
Edit shipping address — "Prerequisite: Rules for edit window." Decide your store's rule and write it in either the ability's Custom prompt or a global rule under Train → Rules.
Plan gating
Some abilities are gated by plan permission. If yours doesn't include an ability, the toggle is locked and clicking it opens the upgrade modal. See Understanding Convi's Pricing Plans for the per-tier breakdown.
Requesting a new ability
At the top of the Abilities screen there's a Request new abilities button — it opens an Intercom message draft for you. Pre-filled message: "Hello 👋 I'd like to let you know that I have a request for a new feature that I believe would be valuable for the application…"
Use this if you wish Convi could do something it doesn't yet. The product team reads every request.