A strong AI chatbot proposal explains one business problem, the customer workflow you will deliver, what information and access it requires, how the client will approve it, and what happens after launch. It should make the project easier to evaluate, not bury uncertainty under AI terminology.
Use the structure below as a working template. Replace every bracketed concept with verified client facts and align the final agreement with your legal and commercial requirements.
1. Executive summary
Keep this section short. It should tell an executive what customers will experience and what the business must do to operate it.
2. Current problem and baseline
- Customer behavior: the questions, channels, languages, and times involved.
- Current process: who answers, which tools are used, and where requests are lost or delayed.
- Verified baseline: relevant volume, response time, completed leads or bookings, and known limitations.
- Business consequence: staff time, customer effort, missed opportunity, or inconsistent information.
- Evidence source: client analytics, support records, interviews, or a clearly labeled estimate.
3. Proposed customer workflow
| Step | Example proposal language |
|---|---|
| Entry | Visitors open a branded assistant on the agreed website pages or contact the configured voice channel |
| Understand | The assistant identifies the request and answers from approved website and document sources |
| Retrieve | When appropriate, it searches current public business pages or uses an authorized connector |
| Act | It captures a qualified lead, shows booking availability, or completes another explicitly approved action |
| Escalate | Unsupported, sensitive, urgent, or human-requested cases follow the documented takeover or notification path |
| Review | The agency and client review agreed conversation and outcome data after launch |
A Chirps implementation may combine website and document training, live public search, branded embeds, lead capture, booking, dispatch alerts, analytics, browser or phone voice, and human takeover. Include only capabilities that the project will configure and test.
4. Scope and deliverables
- Discovery workshop and approved workflow document.
- One named assistant with defined audience, languages, and channels.
- Approved website crawl and document set with exclusions recorded.
- Brand and conversation configuration, including welcome message and starter prompts.
- Specified lead, booking, dispatch, connector, voice, or takeover workflows.
- Installation on named staging and production environments.
- Acceptance test report, launch approval, and operating handoff.
- Post-launch support or a separately described maintenance retainer.
5. Out of scope
Name exclusions plainly. Common examples include redesigning the client's website, creating missing policies, cleaning an unlimited document archive, custom application development, unsupported third-party systems, legal compliance certification, round-the-clock human staffing, and guaranteed sales or resolution outcomes.
6. Client responsibilities
- Provide accurate, current, licensed, and approved source content.
- Provide authorized technical access and keep credentials inside approved secure flows.
- Name decision-makers for content, privacy, escalation, calendar, and launch approval.
- Review deliverables and tests within the agreed timeline.
- Maintain the website, calendar, connected services, recipients, and business policies after launch.
- Handle customer and data-subject requests, human escalations, and sector obligations assigned to the client.
Confirm these inputs using the AI chatbot client onboarding checklist.
7. Acceptance criteria
| Area | Example acceptance test |
|---|---|
| Answers | A signed-off test set returns accurate answers or the approved fallback |
| Sources and links | Referenced destinations are relevant, current, and open correctly |
| Lead capture | Required fields save once and notify the named recipient |
| Booking | Available times, timezone, confirmation, and calendar event match the approved rules |
| Escalation | Human takeover or dispatch reaches the authorized owner with useful context |
| Experience | The widget works on agreed mobile, desktop, light, dark, and accessibility scenarios |
| Resilience | The host site remains usable if the assistant or an external dependency is unavailable |
8. Measurement and reporting
Define the data source and denominator for every metric. Instead of promising a percentage improvement, describe the pilot period, baseline, report, and decision the metric will support. Useful measures may include qualified leads, completed bookings, sampled answer quality, unresolved intents, human handoffs, satisfaction response count, and response time.
The FTC advises businesses to support objective advertising claims before making them. Review its small-business advertising guidance and obtain advice for the rules that apply to your market.
9. Timeline and change control
Show milestones for discovery, source approval, configuration, testing, client review, installation, and launch. State that timeline assumptions depend on timely access and approvals. Define how additional workflows, sources, languages, integrations, or revision rounds are estimated and approved.
10. Pricing and commercial terms
- One-time discovery and implementation fees.
- Recurring platform, monitoring, reporting, and support fees.
- Included usage and treatment of voice, phone, messaging, or third-party charges.
- Payment schedule, taxes, validity period, renewal, cancellation, and suspension terms.
- Change-request rates or estimation process.
- Ownership or license terms for configuration, content, reports, and custom work.
Use the white-label AI chatbot pricing framework to calculate a sustainable quote. Do not copy illustrative numbers from another agency without understanding your own cost and obligation.
11. Data, security, and responsible AI
- Record controller, processor, and subprocessor roles where applicable.
- Describe approved data categories, purposes, retention expectations, and restricted content.
- Require least-privilege access, appropriate authentication, and prompt revocation when roles change.
- Document uncertainty, prohibited advice, human approval, incident, and escalation behavior.
- Identify third-party systems and which party owns their accounts, terms, permissions, and availability.
For European privacy roles, consult the EDPB controller and processor guidance. For AI risk-management resources, see the NIST AI Resource Center.
12. Approval and next step
Proposal quality checklist
- The title describes the client's workflow rather than generic AI transformation.
- Every capability in the proposal is supported, configured, and testable.
- Forecasts are labeled and no unsupported result is guaranteed.
- Deliverables, exclusions, revisions, dependencies, and acceptance are explicit.
- Human ownership remains clear for sensitive, unsupported, and exceptional requests.
- The recurring service has concrete work and boundaries.
- A qualified adviser has reviewed contractual and regulatory terms where necessary.
Build the rest of the agency system
Use this proposal after selecting a niche with the business scorecard. Connect delivery to the agency launch playbook and define post-launch work with the maintenance retainer guide.
This template is educational and does not constitute legal advice or a complete contract. Have counsel adapt terms to your services, customers, jurisdictions, data, and risk.