GoHighLevel's Conversation AI can answer questions, qualify leads and book appointments across your messaging channels while you sleep. Set up carelessly, it can also make things up and annoy customers. Here's how to set it up properly, what it costs, and when a custom AI agent is the better choice.
What Conversation AI does
Conversation AI is GoHighLevel's built-in AI agent for text conversations. It can answer questions, collect information, qualify leads and help book appointments on channels such as SMS, website chat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DMs and WhatsApp.
The three modes, and which to start with
- Off: the AI doesn't respond.
- Suggestive: the AI drafts replies for your team to approve or edit. Start here.
- Auto-Pilot: the AI replies on its own.
Run in Suggestive mode first, review what it would have said, fix its knowledge, and only then switch to Auto-Pilot. An undertrained bot is most likely to invent answers to unusual questions.
Setting it up well
1. Give it a narrow job
"Answer questions about our services, then book a consultation" works far better than "handle all conversations." Decide what it should do, and what it must hand to a person.
2. Build a good knowledge base
The AI answers from the information you give it. Add your services, prices (or how pricing works), service areas, opening hours, booking rules, cancellation policy and your top 20 customer questions with clear answers. Gaps in the knowledge base are where wrong answers come from.
3. Set clear instructions and limits
- A friendly, short tone that sounds like your business
- What it must never do: give medical, legal or financial advice, promise prices that aren't listed, or guarantee outcomes
- When to hand over: complaints, complex questions, or anyone asking for a person
4. Connect it to booking and your workflows
Let it book into the right calendar, and make sure every conversation tags the contact so your normal follow-up automations take over afterwards, like a speed-to-lead sequence.
5. Test with real questions
Before going live, ask it 30–50 real questions from your inbox, including awkward ones. Fix every wrong or vague answer in the knowledge base, not by hoping it gets better.
6. Review weekly
Read a sample of conversations each week, add missing answers, and tighten instructions where it drifted.
What it costs
At the time of writing, HighLevel offers pay-per-use billing for its AI features, or monthly plans per location: around $50/month on its Growth AI plan (which includes a set number of Conversation AI responses) and around $97/month for unlimited use, subject to fair use. Check your billing settings for current prices, since they change.
When you need a custom AI agent instead
Conversation AI covers many FAQ and booking conversations. A custom agent makes sense when you need:
- More control over sources, answers and behaviour
- Large or complex document sets, or several data sources
- Multi-step logic: looking up an order or booking, checking stock, calling another system
- The same assistant across your website, GoHighLevel and internal tools
I explain how custom agents work in AI chatbots for service businesses: what a RAG agent is.
Rules to respect
- Tell people they're talking to an AI assistant.
- Texting rules still apply: A2P 10DLC in the US, consent rules in the UK and EU and Australia.
- Don't collect more personal information than you need.
Want it set up for you?
I've set up conversational AI and knowledge bases in GoHighLevel for clients, and I build custom AI agents with LangChain, LangGraph and n8n when GoHighLevel's built-in AI isn't enough. See AI & automation, my GoHighLevel VA plans and pricing.