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AI Frontdesk: An overview of products, channels, and the user interface

Valid for all AI Frontdesk products (Momentum AI).

AI Frontdesk is the shared interface for the AI assistants at IONOS. This is where you set up an assistant that your customers can contact via multiple channels. At present, these are the phone service via the product AI Receptionist and the chat service via the product AI Chat Assistant. As the interface has a different name from the contract and not every contract contains the same sections, not every customer will see the same information there. This overview shows what is available, what it is called, and what it depends on.

Product, channel, and interface

Both products are available separately, and neither requires the other. If you order both, you will still have just one assistant: the company knowledge, inquiries, appointment booking, and website widget apply to all channels. Only the Language, Voice & Behavior section contains channel-specific settings.

Why your contract has a different name from your interface

The contract name in your IONOS account is based on the product you purchased first. In all cases, the interface itself is called AI Frontdesk.

  • If you first signed up for AI Receptionist and later for AI Chat Assistant, your contract will still bear the name AI Receptionist.
  • If you first subscribed to AI Chat Assistant, this product will be listed as the contract name.

The contract name is irrelevant for the help articles: they are organized by task, not by product. At the top of each article, the Valid for line specifies which products the article applies to.

Note

If you cannot add AI Chat Assistant to your existing AI Receptionist contract, it will run as a separate contract with its own interface. Your two assistants will then not share any settings. To find out what options are available to you, please read the article Adding addition products or changing your plan.

Open AI Frontdesk

  • Log in to your IONOS account.
  • Click on Menu > AI Frontdesk in the title bar.
  • In the contract overview, click on Manage in the tile for the contract you want.

Note

In the assistant interface, you can switch to a different contract at any time using the contract selection in the top-left corner. You can recognize this by the name of your assistant – Rita by default – with an arrow next to it. For contracts with AI Receptionist, the list also shows the phone number and the plan.

What you see on the home page

At the top, there are two tabs: Configure takes you to your assistant’s settings, while Conversations shows all your previous chats and calls. Below the tabs, on the right, are the buttons that let you save your changes and either activate or test your assistant. Which buttons are available depends on the product you have purchased, not on the channel:

  • With AI Chat Assistant only: you will only see Save changes. As long as you have not made any changes, the button is grayed out and labeled No changes.
  • With AI Receptionist: you will also see Activate and the green Test Call button. As soon as you make a change, Test Call becomes Save & Call.

Below this, your settings are displayed as sections – that is, as individual tabs which you can open one after the other. Each tab has a status icon on the left: a green tick for sections that have already been configured, and a gray one for those that are still pending.

What sections your contract contains

The number of sections you can view depends on the product you have ordered; for AI Receptionist, it also depends on the plan tier. There are three tiers, each of which has two names: AI Receptionist Flex (also called S), AI Receptionist Flex Pro (also called M), and AI Receptionist Unlimited (also called L). AI Chat Assistant has just one plan.

Section AI Chat Assistant only Flex Flex Pro Unlimited
Assistant & Language / Language, Voice & Behavior Yes Yes Yes Yes
Company Knowledge Yes Yes Yes Yes
Email summary / Contacts, Call Forwarding & Email Summary Yes Yes Yes Yes
Inquiries Yes Yes Yes Yes
Appointment Booking Yes No Yes Yes
API Integrations No No No Yes
Website Widget Yes No No Yes
Total sections 6 4 5 7

The order is the same in all cases.

Note

If you order AI Chat Assistant as an add-on alongside the AI Receptionist Flex plan, the Appointment Booking section will be included. Your assistant will then book appointments via both channels.

Why a section is missing from your interface

A section that your contract does not include is missing entirely: there is neither a grayed-out card nor an offer in its place. If a help article describes a section that you cannot find, it is for one of the following reasons:

  • Appointment Booking: if you use only AI Receptionist on the AI Receptionist Flex plan (also called S), this section is not displayed. It becomes available as soon as you add AI Chat Assistant or upgrade to a higher plan tier.
  • API Integrations: this section is only available with AI Receptionist, and there only on the AI Receptionist Unlimited plan (also called L).
  • Website Widget: this section is always included with AI Chat Assistant, because the chat runs through the widget. If you use only AI Receptionist, it is available only on the AI Receptionist Unlimited plan (also called L).

Why two sections have different names

Once AI Receptionist has been ordered – whether purchased initially or added later – two sections take on a different name and a wider range of functions. In each case, it is the same section in the same place:

AI Chat Assistant only With AI Receptionist
Assistant & LanguageLanguage, Voice & Behavior: plus settings for your phone calls
Email summary: one address field Contacts, Call Forwarding & Email Summary: contacts, call forwarding, and multiple recipients for summaries

For this reason, help articles that apply to both products mention both names here. To find out what else changes when you add a product, please read the article What changes when a new product is added.

Where you choose between phone and chat

The channel selection sits inside the Language, Voice & Behavior section itself. There are two bars there, each with the tabs Phone AI and Chat AI: one above the fields for language, voice, and the greeting, and one above the fields for conversation behavior. The settings under each bar apply only to the channel whose tab is selected. Everything else – the remaining fields in the same section, all other sections, and the buttons in the top right-hand corner – applies regardless.

Which tabs you see depends on the products you have ordered:

  • Both products ordered: the settings for the respective channel appear under each tab.
  • AI Chat Assistant only: both tabs are available. Under Phone AI, you see an offer to add this product instead of the settings.
  • AI Receptionist only: there are no tabs. The fields for your calls are displayed directly in the section.

Note

Whether AI Chat Assistant can be added to an existing AI Receptionist contract depends on the contract itself and cannot be determined from the user interface. It is not possible with older contracts; in such cases, you need to switch plans while retaining your existing settings. You can find out what options are available to you in the article Adding additional products or changing your plan.

Next steps

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