Plugin or script tag? Two ways to put AI chat on WordPress

"Do I need the plugin, or can I just paste the script tag?" is the most common WordPress question we get, and it has a slightly annoying answer: those two things do different jobs, so the question has no winner.

The script tag puts the chat on your pages. The plugin gets your WordPress content into the knowledge base the chat answers from. A site with only the tag has a chat that knows nothing. A site with only the plugin has a well-fed assistant that nobody can see.

Two jobs, not two methods

So the real decision is narrower than it looked: for getting content in, plugin or crawler? That one has a genuine answer, and it depends on how your site is built.

Plugin or crawler, moment by moment

Row four is the one that decides it for most WooCommerce and custom-post-type sites. A crawler sees the rendered page, so a specification stored in a custom field that your theme never prints is invisible to it. The plugin reads what the content type actually holds, including ACF and JetEngine fields and the WooCommerce product fields, and you tick the ones you want.

How the plugin actually works

It is rules, not a switch. A rule says: this content type, these taxonomies, these fields, into that knowledge base. One rule per content type, as many rules as you need.

That design exists because "sync my site" is almost never what anybody wants. What they want is posts in one base, the services custom type in another, products except the ones tagged discontinued, and nothing from the four hundred draft pages nobody has deleted since 2019.

Three practical notes from the guide, because they catch people out:

• It does not install the chat. Deliberately. The widget lives in your workspace, and its script goes in your theme like on any other site.
• It only reads what your rules ask for, and by default only what a visitor could already see. It never reads WordPress passwords, and nothing about the installation is stored beyond the site URL and the content the rules select.
• The API key can live in `wp-config.php` instead of the database, which is the better choice on a site other people administer.

define( 'WELCOMEAI_API_KEY', 'wai_live_...' );
define( 'WELCOMEAI_USER_ID', 'your-user-id' );

Then the tag, once

Whichever route you chose, the chat arrives the same way: create a widget in your workspace and paste its one line before the closing body tag of your theme. Most themes have a field for this; otherwise it belongs in the footer template or a small snippet plugin.

<script src="https://cdn.welcomeai.dev/widget.js" data-widget="wg_xxxxxxxxxxxx" async></script>

That is the whole installation. It loads asynchronously, so it does not hold up your page, and the setup checklist in your workspace will not tick the install step until the widget answers its first real question on a live page.

So which should you use?

Use the plugin if your content is in WordPress and you want it to stay current without anybody remembering: posts, pages, custom types, WooCommerce. It is the right default for a site that publishes regularly.

Use the crawler if you cannot install plugins, if the site is managed by somebody else, if you are trying it this afternoon and do not want to touch production, or if half the content you care about lives outside WordPress anyway.

Use both when your knowledge lives in two places, which is more common than it sounds: the plugin for the catalogue and the posts, a crawl for the documentation site that sits on a different stack.

Questions people ask

If you are deciding today: paste the tag, point the crawler at your help pages, and see what the assistant can answer by this afternoon. Install the plugin when you want the content to stay current without anybody thinking about it.