Spotlight
Spotlight
A floating "Ask anything" bar on your site that opens straight into the conversation — an alternative to the chat bubble.
Spotlight puts a floating "Ask anything" bar at the bottom center of your site instead of a chat bubble in the corner. Visitors type into the bar and land straight in the conversation, in a focused window above the page — good for in-context help on product, docs, or support pages.
You manage it at Channels → Spotlight. Spotlight uses the same embed script as the Chat widget, so there is nothing new to install.
One on-site channel at a time — your site shows either the Chat widget or Spotlight, never both. Turning Spotlight on replaces a live Chat widget, and turning the Chat widget back on replaces Spotlight. The dashboard asks you to confirm before it switches. Your Chat Page is separate and can stay live alongside either one.
Turn it on
On the Content tab, set Spotlight's own opening message, conversation starters, and bar placeholder. Spotlight starts with a copy of your Chat widget's content; once you save, the two are independent. The footer text and dismissible notice are shared with the Chat widget.
Under Behavior, Close on outside click (on by default) closes Spotlight when a visitor clicks anywhere else on your page. Pressing Escape always closes it.
Switch the toggle in the page header to Live. If your Chat widget is live, confirm that Spotlight should replace it. If the embed script is not on your site yet, copy it from the Deploy tab — it is the same snippet the Chat widget uses. On Shopify, the Asks app embed in your theme covers both.
Verify it works — open your site in a new tab. The "Ask anything" bar sits at the bottom center; type a question and the conversation opens above it.
Open Spotlight from your own buttons
Add the data-asks-open attribute to any button or link on your site, and clicking it opens Spotlight:
<button data-asks-open>Ask AI</button>From your own code, call window.AsksWidget.open(). Both also work while the Chat widget is the live channel — they open its panel instead.
What applies to Spotlight
Spotlight's opening message, starters, and placeholder are its own. Everything else is shared with your other website channels:
| Setting | Where |
|---|---|
| Brand color, light or dark theme, logo, branding | Style tab, shared by all website channels |
| File uploads, typing indicator, auto-open, languages | The Chat widget's Behavior tab |
| Footer text and dismissible notice | Spotlight's Content tab, shared with the Chat widget |
The Spotlight window is a frosted-glass card tinted with your brand color, so the Custom theme's per-token colors don't apply to it. Home, Help, launcher, and window-size settings belong to the Chat widget only.
Troubleshooting
The bar doesn't appear on my site
Check that Spotlight is Live at Channels → Spotlight and that the embed script is on the page — the Deploy tab's installation status shows where it was last detected.
I see the chat bubble instead
The Chat widget is the live on-site channel. Turn Spotlight on to replace it.