AI Chat & Ask ZenGuy

AI Chat & Ask ZenGuy

ZenFlip's AI chat feature — powered by Ask ZenGuy — lets readers ask questions directly inside your flipbook and receive instant, accurate answers drawn from your publication's content. It turns passive reading into an interactive conversation.

How It Works

When AI chat is enabled on a publication, readers see a chat button while reading. They can type any question — "What are the pricing options?", "Does this come in red?", "What's the refund policy?" — and ZenGuy responds using your publication's own text as the source.

ZenGuy only answers based on your content. It won't make up information or pull from outside sources, so readers always get answers that are accurate and on-brand.

Before You Turn It On: Add Your Own OpenAI Key

AI chat runs on your own OpenAI API key, so your publication's text is only ever sent to OpenAI on your own account. ZenFlip does not send your content to an AI provider on its own key. Until you add a key, Enable AI Chat is locked and the AI Chat card tells you so.

1. Go to Settings → AI and add your OpenAI API key.

2. Return to the publication and turn on AI chat.

An OpenAI key is needed even if you want Anthropic to write the answers, because only OpenAI builds the search index that finds the right passages in your book.

Enabling AI Chat

AI chat is enabled per publication. To turn it on:

1. Open the publication from your dashboard

1. Find the AI Chat card on the publication's detail page

1. Toggle Enable AI Chat to on

The toggle saves immediately and ZenFlip starts indexing the publication right away, no separate Save step needed for the toggle itself. Readers can use the chat once the index status shows Ready. Publications are not indexed before you turn AI chat on.

While you're there, you can also customize:

• Welcome message - the greeting readers see when they open the chat panel

• Custom instructions - additional guidance for how ZenGuy should answer questions on this publication (available on every plan that has AI chat, not just Enterprise)

• Require login - optionally require readers to be logged in before they can use the chat

These fields do use a separate Save AI Settings button, distinct from the always-on toggle above.

Disabling AI Chat

To turn off AI chat for a publication, follow the same steps and toggle Enable AI Chat to off. This removes the chat button from the viewer without affecting any other publication settings.

What Readers Experience

When AI chat is active, readers see a floating chat icon in the flipbook viewer. Clicking it opens a chat panel where they can:

• Ask questions in natural language

• Receive answers with references to the relevant pages

• Ask follow-up questions in the same conversation

The conversation panel is available at all times while reading — readers can minimize it and continue reading, then reopen it to ask more questions.

AI Q&A Analytics

ZenFlip tracks how readers use AI chat so you can understand its impact. AI chat analytics are available in the Analytics tab for each publication:

• AI chat sessions — number of readers who opened the chat panel

• Questions asked — total questions submitted across all sessions

• AI session rate — percentage of reading sessions that included at least one AI chat interaction

• Top questions — the most frequently asked questions by readers

A high AI session rate means readers are actively engaging with your content. If your rate is low, consider whether your publication covers topics readers are likely to have questions about.

Best Practices

Works best for content-rich publications. AI chat performs best on publications with dense, informative content — product catalogues, annual reports, policy documents, guides, and magazines. Shorter promotional pieces with minimal text give the AI less to work with.

Keep your PDF text searchable. Scanned image-based PDFs don't give the AI readable text. If your source PDF contains scanned pages, run it through OCR software before uploading to ensure AI chat can access the content.

Pair with lead capture. Consider enabling a lead capture form alongside AI chat. Readers who ask questions are often higher-intent — capturing their email at that moment can be effective. See Lead Capture & Forms.

Turning Off AI for Your Whole Organization

If your organization's policies don't allow AI, ZenFlip can turn off every AI feature for your organization at once: reader chat, storefront chat, the dashboard assistant, AI image descriptions and AI table-of-contents generation. Your content is then not sent to any AI provider, even if an API key is saved.

This switch is set by ZenFlip, not from your dashboard. Email support@zenflip.io to have it turned on or off. While it is on, Settings → AI says so, and keys and chat settings can't be changed.

Plan Availability

AI chat is available on every plan, including Explorer, once you've added your own OpenAI key. Because answers are paid for on your key, there is no monthly question allowance. To protect your key from abuse, each organization has an hourly and a daily cap on reader questions, which rises with your plan:

When a cap is reached, readers see "AI chat has reached its limit for now" and can ask again later.

Reader chat conversations aren't kept forever - they're automatically and permanently deleted after 30 days.

Related Guides

• Lead Capture & Forms — Capture reader details alongside AI interactions

• Tracking Reader Engagement — Understand how readers engage with your publications

• Understanding Your Analytics — Full analytics dashboard guide