How to build a better Gorgias automate Shopify AI chatbot in 2025

If you run a Shopify store, you know the feeling. You check your support queue, and the number of tickets has shot up overnight. You need a way to answer questions quickly and accurately, but without losing the personal touch that makes your brand, well, yours.

This is where AI automation promises to save the day. And if you’re using Gorgias as your helpdesk, you’ve probably explored its own tools to help carry the load.

While Gorgias offers some decent AI features to get you started, many growing businesses find they quickly hit a wall. They end up needing more say over the AI’s personality, better connections to their other tools, and a pricing plan that doesn’t punish them for having a busy month.

This guide will walk you through the common roadblocks people face with Gorgias’s built-in AI. But more importantly, we’ll show you a more flexible and powerful way to build a Gorgias Automate Shopify AI chatbot that your customers will actually find helpful.

What is the native Gorgias Automate Shopify AI chatbot?

What are we talking about exactly? Gorgias Automate is the platform’s set of features designed to handle customer questions without a human agent needing to jump in. It’s built specifically to help e-commerce brands, especially on Shopify, manage a high volume of support tickets.

It’s made up of a few key parts. First, there’s the AI Agent, which is the main brain that tries to resolve tickets completely on its own by answering questions and taking action on things like order updates. Then you have Flows, which are those simple, button-based menus you see in chat widgets that let customers do basic things like track an order or start a return. And finally, you have the classic Macros & Rules, templated responses and triggers that automate repetitive tasks like tagging a ticket.

Think of it as the starter pack for automation. It’s genuinely useful for straightforward tasks, but how well it works really depends on the kinds of questions your customers ask and how much time you can sink into setting it all up. For a lot of growing stores, this is where things get tricky.

A look at the Gorgias Automate dashboard for a Shopify AI chatbot.::

Common challenges with the native Gorgias Automate Shopify AI chatbot

Opting for a built-in solution is convenient, but it often comes with compromises that can lead to unhappy customers and a bigger-than-expected bill. Let’s get into the most common frustrations.

Challenge 1: Robotic responses and a lack of real control

<quote text="One of the most common complaints you’ll find online is that the Gorgias AI just sounds… like an AI. Someone in the r/shopify community on Reddit summed it up perfectly, saying the replies seemed "too AI" and that customers immediately asked to speak to a human." sourceIcon="https://www.iconpacks.net/icons/2/free-reddit-logo-icon-2436-thumb.png" sourceName="Reddit" sourceLink="https://www.reddit.com/r/shopify/comments/1m7hpgd/been_using_gorgias_ai_for_our_online_shop_and_its/"> When your bot sounds stiff and unnatural, it erodes trust and creates more friction, not less.

This happens because the out-of-the-box AI doesn’t give you much leeway to customize its tone and personality. You get a generic, friendly bot, but it probably doesn’t sound anything like your brand.

The bigger problem, though, is the lack of fine-grained control. Maybe you only want your AI to handle simple "Where is my order?" questions but pass anything about a damaged product straight to a human. Getting that level of precision can be a real headache. The same Reddit user mentioned they couldn’t even get the AI into a "preview mode" to check its answers before they went out, which points to a frustrating all-or-nothing setup.

This is a huge difference compared to a more advanced platform like eesel AI. Instead of a one-size-fits-all bot, you get a workflow engine you can fully control. You can use a simple prompt editor to define the AI’s exact persona, from its sense of humor to how many emojis it uses. And, crucially, you can set up precise rules to decide exactly which tickets the AI handles, letting you escalate everything else with confidence.

Challenge 2: Unpredictable, resolution-based pricing

Another pain point you’ll hear about is how fast the costs can add up. That same user complained that "credits burn way too fast and couldnt even see where it all got burnt."

Reddit

Basically, you pay a base fee for your helpdesk plan, and then you pay an extra fee for every single ticket the AI resolves on its own. It sounds fair enough, but it means your support costs jump right alongside your ticket volume. A successful Black Friday sale could end up costing you a fortune in automation fees you weren’t expecting.

If you look at the Gorgias pricing plans, you’ll see that automation costs about a dollar per resolution on top of your plan. The Basic plan at $60/month gives you 300 helpdesk tickets, but each AI resolution costs another $1.00 (or $0.90 if you pay annually). This continues for the Pro and Advanced plans, so the more you automate, the more you pay. This model just doesn’t provide much certainty, leaving you to guess what your bill will look like each month.

Challenge 3: Disconnected knowledge and limited integrations

Your support AI is only as smart as the information you feed it. If it can only read your help center articles, it’s going to be stumped by more complex questions. This was another major issue that came up in that Reddit thread, where a user found out the Gorgias AI couldn’t talk to one of their third-party apps.

Native AIs are often stuck in their own little world. They learn from your Gorgias helpdesk, but they can’t pull information from the other tools you rely on to run your business. For any Shopify store, that’s a real problem. Your customers ask questions that need info from all over the place:

• A dedicated returns platform like Loop Returns.

• A specific shipping carrier’s tracking system.

• Internal policy documents you keep in Google Docs or Confluence.

• Your subscription tool, like Recharge.

If the AI can’t tap into these sources, it can’t give a full answer. That means the ticket gets escalated to a human agent anyway, which kind of defeats the whole point of having automation in the first place.

This is where a tool like eesel AI is built differently. It’s designed from the start to bring all your knowledge sources together instantly. You can connect it not just to your Gorgias helpdesk but also to past tickets, Confluence pages, Google Docs, and over 100 other apps. This gives the AI a complete picture of your business, so it can answer even the trickiest questions with accuracy.

Connecting multiple knowledge sources to improve your Gorgias Automate Shopify AI chatbot.::

A better way: Building your Gorgias Automate Shopify AI chatbot with eesel AI

The good news is you don’t have to tear down your entire support setup and start from scratch. Instead of a painful "rip and replace" project, you can simply add a smarter, more flexible AI layer right on top of the Gorgias helpdesk you already use.

Go live in minutes with a self-serve setup

Getting started with a powerful AI shouldn’t require weeks of sales calls and mandatory demos. With eesel AI, you can be up and running in just a few minutes. The whole platform is designed to be self-serve, so you can sign up and get everything configured on your own schedule.

The setup is straightforward: a one-click integration connects to your Gorgias account, you link your knowledge sources (like your help center and past tickets), and you’re ready to start building your AI agent.

Test with confidence using risk-free simulation

One of the biggest worries when launching an AI chatbot is that it might go off the rails and start giving bizarre answers to real customers. This is where eesel AI’s simulation mode is a lifesaver.

Before your AI ever interacts with a live customer, you can run it on thousands of your past Gorgias tickets in a safe, private environment. This feature gives you:

• An accurate forecast of how many tickets the AI can resolve.

• A preview of the exact responses the AI would have sent.

• A clear view of any gaps in your knowledge base that you need to fill.

This lets you tweak the AI’s prompts, knowledge, and actions until you are 100% comfortable with its performance. It’s a level of risk-free testing that lets you roll out automation with complete peace of mind.

Simulation mode for testing a Gorgias Automate Shopify AI chatbot.::

Create custom actions for full resolution

A truly helpful AI chatbot doesn’t just answer questions, it gets things done. This is what separates basic automation from an experience that genuinely makes customers happy.

With eesel AI’s custom actions, your bot can connect directly to your Shopify store and other systems through their APIs. This unlocks a whole new level of useful automation. For an e-commerce store, this means your AI can:

• Look up live order status and tracking info.

• Start a return directly in your returns management system.

• Check a customer’s loyalty points balance.

• Automatically tag, assign, and route tickets inside Gorgias.

This directly solves the biggest problem with native AIs that can’t talk to other platforms, allowing you to handle tickets from start to finish without needing a human to step in.

This video provides a step-by-step guide to setting up and using the features available in Gorgias Automate.

Don’t replace your helpdesk, supercharge it

Gorgias is a great helpdesk for Shopify stores, but when it comes to AI automation, its native tools can leave you wishing for more control, predictability, and intelligence. Trying to automate your support with a rigid tool often leads to robotic experiences, frustrated customers, and bills that are all over the place.

But you don’t have to start over. Instead of replacing what works, you can build on top of it. eesel AI acts as the smart, flexible brain that works with your existing setup. It gives you total control over your automation, predictable pricing you can actually budget for, and the ability to connect all your knowledge for truly helpful, human-like support.

Ready to build a better Gorgias Automate Shopify AI chatbot? Sign up for a free eesel AI trial and see how much you can automate in just a few minutes.