How can we help?

Sydonia is an AI assistant for businesses. It learns your business from your website and documents, then talks with your customers as Syd: it answers their questions, helps them choose, books appointments and helps with problems, by message or voice on your website and, once a WhatsApp number is connected, by WhatsApp message. Sydonia is operated by qelia, a French company based in Paris.

Syd is the name your customers see and hear. In the window on your website, Syd’s first message introduces it as an AI assistant (“Hi, I’m Syd, your AI assistant.”), so your customers know they are talking to an AI. Sydonia is the name of the product.

Online shops and retailers, service businesses, consultants and advisory firms, and local businesses such as salons and studios. Syd follows what your business needs: helping a customer choose and buy, explaining a service and gathering the essentials for a first conversation, booking an appointment, or working through a technical problem.

Email us at quentin@qelia.ai. You can also sign in at sydonia.ai/console and use “Test with your site” to ask for a test with your own website. We set Sydonia up with you: Sydonia reads your website, you try Syd in the console’s Simulator, then you connect the channels you want and make Syd available to your customers.

No. Sydonia brings its own way of selling and supporting. You provide your information, and in the console you choose which skills and goals Syd pursues for your business, for example helping customers choose, selling, booking an appointment, resolving a service need or opening a ticket.

No. Sydonia can read any public website and appear on it, whatever it is built with. A Sydonia app for Shopify isn’t publicly available yet.

Your public pages: your offer and products (with prices, variants and stock), your delivery, returns and payment policies, your FAQ, your contact details, your brand colours and logo, and a picture of your homepage. Sydonia reads pages as they are published. Text that only appears after a script runs in the browser may be missed.

Yes. Documents can be added with a capture, and they are kept for later captures of the same site. Sydonia reads PDF, Word, Excel, CSV, plain text, Markdown, web pages and images. Scanned pages and images are read with text recognition. A file Sydonia cannot read, for example a password-protected or damaged file, is still listed, with the reason.

No. Sydonia doesn’t watch your website for changes. Syd answers from the last capture that was published. After you change your site, run a new capture and publish it. In the console it’s under Account admin › your site › Captures › Update capture. If the button isn’t available to you, ask us or your reseller to run it.

No. A new capture goes to your Sandbox first, so you can try Syd with it in the Simulator. Your customers get it once an admin publishes it to Production. If a new capture fails, Syd keeps answering from the current one.

It depends on the size of your site and how many documents you add. The console shows the progress while it runs: the current stage and how many pages have been read out of the pages found. You can close the page: the capture continues on its own and appears under Captures.

Yes. An admin of the site can save the password in Site settings under Capture access. It is stored in a secret store, used only for that site’s address, and never shown again. A saved user name isn’t used to sign in yet.

Sydonia reads the robots.txt file of every site it captures. Pages that robots.txt disallows are not read, unless the business has asked Sydonia to read its site. In that case each such page is recorded as read with the business’s consent.

Yes. The Store knowledge page shows everything Sydonia captured, by category (brand and contact, policies, FAQ, products, pages and more), with where each item came from. For each category you can choose how Syd uses it, or exclude it. When a capture disagrees with a line your team set, that line is held back until you resolve the conflict. Your choices take effect with the next capture, and reach your customers once it is published. Editing a product’s description directly in the console isn’t available yet: change it on your website and run a new capture.

Sydonia keeps three captures for each site: the ones in use and the newest earlier ones. Older ones are deleted automatically. A capture can be deleted from the Captures list: this deletes Sydonia’s captured copy of the site, in all its versions, and can’t be undone. If Production uses that capture, deleting it takes Syd offline on that site until another version is published. If you can’t delete captures yourself, ask us or your reseller.

Sydonia reads your site in its own language. For a site published in several languages, it builds its knowledge from the most complete version of each page. Syd then answers each customer in their own language. The Store knowledge page shows the captured content in the language of the capture, whatever language you use the console in.

Sydonia couldn’t read your currency, because your site doesn’t state it clearly or names several currencies for its products. In that case, prices are kept without a currency and Syd doesn’t quote one. Store knowledge shows this as an action. Make your site state its currency, then run a new capture.

In the Syd window on your website, where they can type, record a voice message, or start a voice call in the browser with “Call me”. And by WhatsApp message on the WhatsApp number connected to your site, once there is one. Customers can then also choose “Continue on WhatsApp” in the window.

Not yet. Syd doesn’t answer phone numbers or WhatsApp calls. Customers can talk to Syd by voice with “Call me” in the window on your website.

Yes. In the window on your website, Syd’s first message says “Hi, I’m Syd, your AI assistant.”

Yes. Syd’s first message in the window links to Sydonia’s terms: by choosing an option or writing to Syd, the customer accepts them. A customer who writes to your WhatsApp number first gets the same notice at the top of Syd’s first reply.

Depending on how Syd is set up for your business, it can answer questions from your information, help customers choose, guide them to checkout by sending the checkout link for their basket, book appointments in your connected calendar, help with technical problems, and hand the matter to your team when a person is needed.

No. Syd doesn’t change orders, issue refunds, take payments or manage customer accounts, and Sydonia never asks for card details in a conversation. Customers pay through your own checkout.

Only if you allow it, and only the discounts you have authorised. Discounts are off by default.

Syd answers from your catalogue and the information Sydonia captured. When it can’t confirm a specific detail, it says so rather than guess. Like any automated assistant, it can occasionally be wrong, so keep your website up to date and run a new capture when it changes.

Syd hands the matter to your team. It sends a written hand-off with the details by email to your account’s admins, and its part ends there. If your account has no admin yet, add one in Member admin, or hand-offs reach nobody. Transferring a customer live to a person by phone or chat isn’t available yet.

Syd answers each customer in their own language. Its fixed lines (the greeting, the terms notice and the opt-out sentence) are written in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

No. Syd waits for the customer to finish and doesn’t talk over them. A call can move to chat and back, and the chat keeps what was settled during the call.

Not yet. Messages that Syd starts itself, such as a WhatsApp reminder about an abandoned basket, aren’t available yet. Today, Syd talks with customers who come to it: in the window on your website, including on your checkout page, and on WhatsApp.

Syd records the opt-out, for example when a customer replies STOP. An opt-out stops Syd from starting contact with that customer. It never stops the customer from writing to you again: they are always answered. A business can’t override a customer’s opt-out.

Yes. Choose a female or male voice in your site settings, and try it in the Simulator before you publish. A call keeps the voice it started with.

Yes. On the Introduction messages page, admins can edit Syd’s first message for each situation (for example a visit to your website or your checkout page) and each language, in the Sandbox, then publish. The terms line and Syd’s introduction stay as they are.

Go to sydonia.ai/console and choose “Continue with Google”, or sign in with your email and a password of at least 6 characters. A new email account has to be confirmed from the link we send. Use the email address you were invited with.

An admin opens Member admin, chooses Invite user, and sets what the person can reach. The colleague receives an email and creates their own sign-in with the invited address. Users who aren’t admins can’t invite.

Admins can invite people, publish changes to Production and set up connections such as WhatsApp. Account admins can also create and delete sites. Users can see everything in their scope, try Syd in the Simulator and make changes in the Sandbox, but they can’t publish.

Production is what your customers get. The Sandbox is your private copy for making and testing changes. An admin reviews the changes and promotes them to Production. An earlier published version can be restored.

Use the Simulator. It shows your own website with Syd on it, in chat or a voice call, using your Sandbox or your published version. You can choose the customer’s language and Syd’s voice. Nothing is sent to anyone, and nothing in the Simulator changes your settings.

Yes. An account can hold several sites, each with its own Sandbox and Production, knowledge, members and connections. Switch between them with the site selector at the top of the console. Sites are created in Account admin.

Yes, with a demo link that opens your site’s Sandbox. Its settings decide who can open it: anyone with the link, people with an email address on the company domains you list, or the email addresses you list. People on a list receive a 6-digit code by email. A visitor never gets a console account. If you can’t change these settings, ask us or your reseller.

Yes. In Site settings, Window colours sets the two colours of the Syd window. A colour you set replaces the one captured from your site. The window on your website changes once the Sandbox version with the new colours is published. Your website itself doesn’t change.

French, English (UK, US and Australia), Spanish, Arabic, German and Italian. Change it with the language control in the menu. Your choice is saved with your profile.

Not yet. The console doesn’t show conversation history or analytics yet. When Syd needs your team, it sends you a written hand-off by email.

Yes, within 15 days. An admin who can delete the site can restore it. Deleting takes Syd offline on that site straight away. After a restore, Production stays off until someone publishes again.

If you sign in with Google, use “Continue with Google”. Otherwise email us from the address you sign in with.

With one line of code pasted before </body> on every page. The line comes from the Deploy page of the console, and it only works on the web addresses listed for your site. Depending on your account, creating the line and changing those addresses may be done by us or your reseller, so ask us when you are ready.

Syd answers WhatsApp messages on a number connected to your site. Connecting a number isn’t open to every business yet, so contact us to find out whether it can be set up for you. Meta’s WhatsApp charges are included in every plan that has WhatsApp.

Talk to us first. A number already used with WhatsApp has to be removed from its current WhatsApp account before it can be registered again, and WhatsApp doesn’t allow that within 30 days of a paid message.

Yes, with Google Calendar. Syd finds suitable times and books the one the customer agrees to, then confirms the booking to the customer in the conversation. Your team handles cancellations and rescheduling. Microsoft Outlook isn’t available yet.

On the Calendar page of the console, create a connection link and send it to the person who manages the calendar. They open it, choose “Continue with Google” and approve. The link works once and expires after 7 days. Then choose the calendar, your time zone and at least one appointment type with a name and a duration, and switch on “Syd may book”.

Only busy time ranges and calendar names, and it creates the appointments your customers agree to. It never reads event titles, descriptions, locations or attendees. Calendar data is never used to develop, improve or train AI models. You can disconnect at any time: Sydonia’s access is deleted straight away, and you can also remove it from your Google account. Details are in section 12 of the privacy policy.

Not yet. Today, when a customer needs your team, Syd sends the hand-off by email.

You are the data controller for your customers’ personal data. qelia processes it on your behalf, to provide Sydonia. You are responsible for collecting your customers’ marketing consent lawfully and for keeping your catalogue, prices and policies accurate.

Mainly what your customers share in conversations (messages, voice messages, call audio and transcripts), their WhatsApp number and first name, basket details, opt-out and consent records, and the store and calendar data you connect. Sydonia doesn’t process card details, doesn’t build advertising profiles and doesn’t sell data. The full list is in section 2 of the privacy policy.

The AI model providers don’t use your conversations to train their models. qelia may use anonymised conversations and call recordings to train and improve its own models, but never data obtained through a calendar connection. See section 5 of the privacy policy.

The retention periods are set out in section 6 of the privacy policy. Call recordings are deleted after 30 days. Conversation transcripts are kept until you or your customer ask for them to be deleted. Copies kept in Google’s logs are kept for 55 days, then marked for deletion by Google. Copies of written conversations kept by OpenAI are kept for 30 days, then deleted by OpenAI. A request to delete your data does not delete either sooner.

The customer can message the WhatsApp number they used to talk to Syd asking for deletion, or email quentin@qelia.ai with the WhatsApp number they used. qelia deletes the transcripts and call recordings linked to that number, keeps only the record needed to keep honouring an opt-out, and answers within 30 days. Copies in Google’s logs (55 days) and copies of written conversations kept by OpenAI (30 days) are kept until their periods end. The details are in section 10 of the privacy policy.

Sydonia is hosted on Google Cloud in the EU (Belgium and France). The full list of sub-processors, with what each one does and where, is in section 4 of the privacy policy. Some of them, such as Meta and the AI model providers, process data outside the EEA, under their contractual data-protection terms. Businesses get 30 days’ notice before a new sub-processor is added, and may object.

Each business’s data is kept in its own separate area. Phone numbers are redacted in Sydonia’s logs and in the text sent to AI models (a number said aloud in a call stays in the call audio). Credentials are kept in a managed secret store. Incoming WhatsApp and Shopify requests are verified and rejected if they don’t match. See section 7 of the privacy policy.

Yes. Calls are recorded so that conversations can be reviewed and the service improved, and recordings are deleted after 30 days.

Yes. Ask us for qelia’s Data Processing Agreement.

Sydonia has monthly plans for each website or store, plus a Free plan for shops starting on Shopify. The plans, their allowances and what each includes are on the pricing section of sydonia.ai. Prices exclude applicable taxes, and Meta’s WhatsApp charges are included in every plan that has WhatsApp. Contact us to arrange your plan.

Yes. Either party can end the service at any time. The retention periods in the privacy policy continue to apply after it ends.

Not at this stage. Sydonia is provided as is and as available, as set out in the terms.

qelia, a French limited liability company (SARL), 47 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, France, R.C.S. Paris 106 242 407. Sydonia is the name of the product.

“This account has no access to the console yet” means the address you signed in with hasn’t been invited. Sign in with the address you were invited with, or ask an admin to invite this one.

If the console says “The invitation is saved, but the email could not be sent”, the invitation still exists. Your colleague can go to sydonia.ai/console and sign in with the invited address.

Changes are saved to the Sandbox first. Your customers see them only after an admin publishes the Sandbox to Production.

Check the Deploy page. “Waiting for site” means the line hasn’t been loaded from your site yet: check it is pasted before </body> on every page. “Needs a look” means Syd was loaded only on addresses that aren’t listed for your site. “Turned off” means the line was switched off. If you need an address added, ask us or your reseller.

Some sections of the site couldn’t be read, for example because part of the site is password-protected or blocked. A partial capture can still be used and published. If a section you need is missing, fix the cause and run a new capture.

Your storefront is password-protected and no password is saved for it. Save the password in Site settings under Capture access, then run a new capture. If it says the store didn’t accept the password, update the saved password.

Sydonia lists every file it couldn’t read, with the reason. Typical reasons: the file is password-protected (“Encrypted document”), damaged, in a format Sydonia doesn’t read, or a scan with no readable text. Save it again as an unprotected PDF, a Word document or an image, and add it again.

“Microphone permission was denied” means the browser blocked the microphone: the customer needs to allow it for your website and try again. “Live voice is unavailable in this browser” means the browser can’t make the call: the customer can chat instead.

Your site doesn’t have a WhatsApp number connected yet. Contact us to set one up.

A calendar connection link works once and expires after 7 days. Create a new link on the Calendar page and send it again.

Booking needs a connected calendar, at least one appointment type with a name and a duration, and “Syd may book” switched on. If the console says “The calendar needs to be connected again”, connect it again with a new link.

Your browser probably blocked the pop-up. Allow pop-ups for sydonia.ai and try again.