Before You Start What You Need

This course is hands-on. You will build a working chatbot that answers questions from your own documents. Here is what you need.

Required accounts (all free)

• Botpress (botpress.com): Your primary chatbot-building platform. The free tier includes enough messages to complete this course. Sign up at botpress.com.
• ChatGPT Plus or free account (chat.openai.com): You will use custom GPTs as a second approach in Module 4. A free ChatGPT account works for exploring, but creating custom GPTs requires a Plus subscription. If you do not have Plus, you can follow along with screenshots and focus on Botpress.

Optional (not required)

• Wonderchat (wonderchat.io): A simpler alternative covered briefly. Only needed if you want to compare platforms.
• Custom domain: If you want to embed your chatbot on a website. You can add this later.

What you will build

Throughout this course, you will build one main project: an internal FAQ chatbot that answers questions from a set of documents you provide. This could be a company handbook, a product manual, course notes, a help center, or any collection of information people frequently ask about.

You will also build a second, smaller chatbot using a different platform to compare approaches.

What you will need to provide

You need at least 5 to 10 pages of written content to use as your knowledge base. This can be:

• PDF files (employee handbook, product docs, policies)
• Text files or Word documents
• Web pages (FAQ pages, help articles)
• Google Docs or Notion pages

If you do not have documents ready, the course includes instructions for creating a sample knowledge base.

Time estimate

Expect 6 to 10 hours total. Each module takes roughly 1 to 2 hours.

Action step

Create your Botpress account now. Gather the documents you want your chatbot to answer questions about. If you do not have documents ready, create a simple 2-page FAQ in a text file covering 10 to 15 common questions and answers about any topic you know well.