Reader Chat for Jetpack Search

Reader Chat lets visitors ask questions about your site’s content and get conversational answers, powered by Jetpack Search. This guide explains what Reader Chat does, how to turn it on, and how it works alongside the Embedded Search Blocks experience.

This feature is available on sites with an active Jetpack Search subscription.

What is Reader Chat?

Reader Chat is a conversational interface that lets readers ask questions in plain language and receive answers drawn from the posts and pages on your site. Reader Chat uses your site’s Jetpack Search index as its knowledge base, so answers are grounded in your own published content.

Reader Chat does not generate content from sources outside your site. It does not answer questions when no matching content is indexed.

Requirements

To use Reader Chat, your site needs:

1. An active Jetpack Search subscription.
2. The Embedded Search Blocks experience is enabled in Jetpack Search settings.
3. At least one indexed post or page for Reader Chat to draw answers from.

Turn Reader Chat on or off

1. In WP Admin, go to Jetpack → Search.
2. Under Search Experience, select Embedded Search Blocks.
3. Toggle Reader Chat under Additional Settings.

To turn Reader Chat off, return to the same screen and toggle Reader Chat off. Turning Reader Chat off does not remove your Search index or affect other Jetpack Search blocks on your site.

How Reader Chat works with Embedded Search Blocks

Reader Chat is one part of the Embedded Search Blocks experience, the Jetpack Search 3.0 experience that lets you place search and chat directly inside your site’s pages, rather than as an overlay.

Reader Chat appears only when the Embedded Search Blocks experience is selected. If you switch your site back to the Overlay or Classic experience, Reader Chat is hidden until Embedded Search Blocks is selected again.

Privacy

Reader Chat sends visitor questions to Jetpack’s search backend so it can return answers based on your site’s indexed content. Visitor questions are processed to generate a response and are not used to advertise to visitors.

For a full breakdown of data shared by Jetpack Search, see the privacy table on the Jetpack Search support page.