# What to expect from AI onboarding

See what AI onboarding builds for you, which choices you can change, and how to keep going if website research gets stuck.

Use this page to check what an onboarding choice does or find your way past a stuck step. Every new project starts with AI onboarding. It researches your website, suggests a good first thing to build, and drafts it for you to review.

## While it researches your website

You'll see **Hang tight, we're researching** followed by your domain. RightMessage reads your homepage, finds key pages across your site, learns your tone and style, and researches your business and audience. It uses what it finds to suggest what to build and to write a starting brief, so check that it understood your business correctly.

If research takes a while, choose **Continue with starter playbooks** when it appears. If research fails or your website address was wrong, correct **Website URL** or retry when those controls appear. Continuing without research is fine. You'll just start from generic playbooks instead of ones based on your site.

## If it asks about your business

When research can't tell enough about your business, onboarding asks you directly. Enter your business name, type, audience, and the offer or next step you want visitors to take. All four are required. The name can be up to 255 characters, and the audience and offer can each be up to 1,000. Business types include software, ecommerce, services, digital products, coaching, and media.

## Choose what to build

Onboarding offers three starting points: a subscriber survey, a smart CTA funnel, or a lead-generation quiz.

Prefer to build things yourself? Choose **Build from scratch**. You'll go to the dashboard to install your snippet and follow the [app walkthrough](https://rightmessage.com/help/first-experience-in-the-app). Accounts with more than one project also see **Skip guided setup**.

You can come back to these choices later from the dashboard's **Get set up** checklist. Depending on your progress, it shows **Choose your first outcome**, **Choose another outcome**, or **Preview and start**.

## Review the brief

Onboarding writes a brief for what it's about to build. Read it and edit anything that doesn't fit: remove claims you can't make, questions you wouldn't ask, and destinations you don't have. If the brief can't be generated, write your own notes or continue with the starter.

Coming back from the dashboard later, **Build it for me** generates the flow from your brief, and **Build it myself** starts a blank flow you build by hand.

## Choose how it appears

| If you're building… | It starts with…                                                       | You can also choose…                                                                          |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Subscriber survey   | **In a popup after a form submit**, which also turns on Email Watcher | **Embedded on a page**, which doesn't turn on Email Watcher                                   |
| Quiz                | **Embed on a dedicated quiz page**                                    | **Trigger in a popup with a button or link click**, which needs a button or link on your site |
| Smart CTAs          | **Unobtrusive Toaster**, at the bottom right after five seconds       | **Exit Popup**, shown when visitors move to leave                                             |

You can change targeting and timing afterward. If you rely on an existing form for the survey's follow-up, make sure that form identifies the right contact.

## Review what syncs to your email platform

If your email platform is connected, choose **Next** to review which fields RightMessage will save answers to. Edit any **Field name** to suit your platform.

| Status                   | What it means                                  |
| ------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **Reuse existing field** | Saves to a field you already have              |
| **Create field**         | Creates a new field in your email platform     |
| **Needs integration**    | Can't sync until you connect an email platform |
| **Needs attention**      | Something needs correcting                     |
| **Review later**         | Leaves that answer unmapped for now            |

Creating fields changes your email platform right away, separately from publishing your website. Without a connected platform, this step is skipped. Smart CTAs skip it too, because they use signals you already have.

## Build it and review the draft

Choose **Build Now** and keep the dialog open while it builds. Then open the draft and check every question, route, offer, and widget setting before you publish. Turn **Enabled** off while you're still working on it if you like. Widgets you create by hand start enabled.

If onboarding shows **Your first setup is underway**, you've done enough to use the full workspace. Choose **Go to dashboard** to keep building.

![First setup progress confirmation with an action to continue into the dashboard](https://rightmessage.com/help/screens/onboarding.light.webp)