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Clever AI is the payment intelligence layer built into the Merchant Portal. You ask questions in plain language, and it answers from your live payment, customer, and store data. It also generates insights on its own, without you asking. The difference from a reporting tool is timing. Analytics explain what already happened, after settlement. Clever AI reads what is happening now, across every transaction, and tells you what your next move should be while you can still influence the outcome. See Platform Overview for where it sits alongside the rest of the platform. These tutorials cover the whole surface in the order you are likely to use it: understanding what Clever AI reads, opening it, asking your first question, connecting your store, then reading, acting on, and following up on an insight.
Clever AI is in Beta. Sanity-check figures before you act on them, and use the flag control described in Rate an answer or flag a problem to report anything that looks wrong.

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How Clever AI works

Clever AI is purpose-built for payments. It is built on transaction behaviour, cashback mechanics, and Milestone Rewards performance, not on generic web data, which is why it can answer questions about your own settlement and loyalty figures that a general-purpose AI tool cannot. Behind the single question box, Clever AI runs 12 specialised agents. Hello Clever publishes four of them by name:
  • Planner Agent
  • Customer Intelligence Agent
  • Payment Intelligence Agent
  • Cashback Campaign Agent
You never pick an agent. You ask one question, and Clever AI works out which agents to involve. That is why the same box can both explain a trend and hand you a pre-filled cashback campaign.

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What Clever AI reads

Your Hello Clever data

Historical and real-time transaction volume, customer purchase and repeat-visit patterns, cashback redemption activity, and channel performance.

Connected stores

Order, product, and customer data from a store you connect through a data connector. Read-only.

Files you attach

A report, invoice, or screenshot you attach to a question, analysed alongside your live data.

External context

Web traffic, consumer activity, macroeconomic data, weather patterns, industry outlook, and other alternative data sources.
That last group is why an insight sometimes references something outside your own numbers, such as a demand spike that tracks a regional storm warning or a card decline rate that tracks a banking outage.

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Open Clever AI

1

Use the global Ask bar

Click the Ask me anything… bar at the top of any portal page, or press the keyboard shortcut shown next to it. The bar is available from every screen, so you never have to navigate away to ask something.
2

Or open it from the sidebar

Select Clever AI under Growth Tools in the left sidebar. The badge on the item shows how many new insights are waiting for you.
3

Let the Insights panel load

When the page opens, the Insights panel on the right takes a moment to pull together your latest recommendations. You will see a short loading animation while it works.
4

Land on the ask screen

Once loaded, you get a question box on the left under Ask me about your payments, customers, and more, and your Insights feed on the right.

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Ask a question

1

Type your question

Enter any question about your payments, customers, or sales in the input field. There are no filters or dashboards to configure first.
2

Or tap a suggested prompt

If you are not sure what to ask, select one of the prompt chips below the input box, for example What were my best sales days this month?
3

Attach a file (optional)

Select the paperclip icon to attach a report, invoice, or screenshot. Clever AI analyses it alongside your live data.
4

Send it

Select the send arrow on the right of the input box. It turns dark once you have typed something.
5

Watch the answer stream in

Answers stream in live. While a response is generating, the send arrow becomes a square stop button: select it to cut the answer short.
6

Check the response time

Each answer shows how long it took to generate, above the Beta footer.
Clever AI answers in 21 languages. Ask in the language you work in, and the answer comes back in the same language.

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What you can ask

Anything Clever AI can reach in your live data is fair game. These examples show the range:
To model a change rather than explain one, use the Forecaster instead. It projects the outcome of a pricing, incentive, or loyalty change against your live data before you commit budget to it.

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Choose which data Clever AI reads

By default Clever AI answers from the payment and customer data already in your Hello Clever account. Connect a store to widen that scope. Connecting a store is what closes the gap between what sold and what settled. Shopify and WooCommerce tell you what sold. Hello Clever knows what actually landed in your bank. With both connected, Clever AI can reconcile the two and explain the difference, rather than answering from half the picture.
1

Open Data connectors

Select + Data connectors next to the input box.
2

Toggle a connected source on or off

Under Connected, flip a source on to include it in your question, or off to exclude it. Sources are listed by the friendly name you gave them, for example a store name.
3

Add a new connector

Pick a platform from the Add new data connector list. Shopify, WooCommerce, and API Connection are available now. Google Drive and Dropbox are marked Coming soon.Setting up a store connector takes a few steps on the platform side. Follow the Shopify connector or WooCommerce connector guide, then come back here.
4

Confirm it applies to your question

Each selected source appears as a chip above the input box. Select the x on a chip to remove that source before you ask.
After you connect a new store, Clever AI can take up to 24 hours to finish the initial data sync. Answers about that store will be incomplete until it does.

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Read and act on an insight

Everything in the Insights feed on the right was generated automatically. You did not have to ask for it. See Actionable Insights for the kinds of insights Clever AI produces and how it generates them. Every insight follows the same shape: a signal it detected, the context that makes the signal matter, a recommended action, and a button that starts that action.
1

Read the headline

The bold title is the takeaway, for example Boost Sales: Reactivate 73 Dormant Customers, 85.90% Revenue at Risk.
2

Read the explanation

The paragraph underneath explains why Clever AI raised the insight and estimates the impact of acting on it.
3

Act on it in one click

Insights with a black button underneath are not just observations. Select the button, for example + Create Cashback Campaign, to jump straight into setting up the recommended action with the relevant detail pre-filled. See Cashback Campaigns for the rest of that flow.
Insights are time-sensitive by design. A churn signal or a demand spike is worth acting on in the window Clever AI flags it in, so work the feed regularly rather than saving it for a weekly review.

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Follow up on an insight or answer

You can dig deeper without retyping the context.
1

Select Ask under an insight

Every insight card has an Ask link underneath it.
2

Type your follow-up

The insight is quoted at the top of your question box, so Clever AI knows exactly what you are asking about. Type your follow-up below it, for example how to execute. Select the x on the quote to drop the context.
3

Use the suggested follow-ups

When an answer finishes, a Keen to dig deeper? section suggests natural next questions, for example Show me the conversion rate by payment method. Select one to continue the conversation.
4

Find past answers in the feed

Your questions and their answers are logged in the Insights panel with the assistant’s name and a timestamp, so you can scroll back through them later.

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Manage chats and give feedback

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Chat panel controls

Three icons sit at the top left of the chat panel.

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Rate an answer or flag a problem

1

Rate an insight or answer

Select thumbs-up on an insight card or completed answer if it was useful, or thumbs-down if it is not relevant to your business right now. Clever AI adjusts what it surfaces next based on this.
2

Flag something inaccurate

If the numbers look wrong, select the flag icon on the insight card. This sends it to the Hello Clever team for review.

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Limitations

Clever AI answers and insights are generated from your own transaction, customer, and connected store data. They are recommendations, not guarantees, and should be combined with your own business judgement.
  • Accounts with limited transaction history get fewer and less specific answers until more data has been captured.
  • Clever AI reads only the sources toggled on for a question. If an answer looks short of data, check your Data connectors selection first.
  • Connectors are read-only. Clever AI analyses a connected store, it never writes back to it.
  • Clever AI recommends an action and pre-fills it. It does not launch campaigns for you, so nothing goes live until you confirm it.
Clever AI is built on anonymised transaction data, inside a platform certified to PCI DSS Level 1 and SOC 2. See AML/CTF and AI practices for how Hello Clever handles this data, and How we handle data for the broader picture.

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Where to go next