What is Store Assistant?
Store Assistant is an AI-powered product discovery and support chat experience on Microsoft.com and XBOX.com.
It can help you learn more about products, identify which products are likely to meet your unique needs, and help with basic support questions by leveraging Large Language Model (LLM) from Azure OpenAI to augment your site experience through natural chat interaction.
How can Store Assistant help me?
The assistant can help users by:
- Identifying the products that are most likely to meet the needs you describe.
- Providing information on whether a product is in stock.
- Locating promotions and deals.
- Helping to make product comparisons.
- Locating Microsoft site resources, including support information or policies.
- Providing technical support and troubleshooting steps.
If preferred for Microsoft.com users, Store Assistant also makes it easy to chat with a human Store Associate for purchase-related inquiries and can connect or guide you on where to find technical support.
Can I use Store Assistant as a general chatbot?
The bot is best used to help find the products and services that suit your needs. Generic questions are best handled by Microsoft Copilot.
What happens when I click on a link that takes me off Microsoft.com?
The links in this assistant may direct you to another website. The linked sites are not under the control of Microsoft and Microsoft is not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site, or any changes or updates to such sites. Microsoft is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by Microsoft of the site.
What data has these Store Assistant been trained on?
The assistant is powered by GPT-5.1, trained on natural language text and source code from publicly available sources. Store assistant also uses Bing Custom Search and Microsoft.com product catalog for enriching each conversation with up-to-date information.
What does it mean that "content generated by AI may not be accurate"?
This means that AI systems are not perfect. They can make mistakes or produce false or misleading information. For example, AI systems can confuse facts and fiction; invent details that are not based on reality; fail to capture the style, preferences, and creativity of the user, or be influenced by biases or hidden agendas of the data or the developers.
How do I know when I am speaking with AI or a person?
All conversations begin with speaking with the AI. Additionally, you will see a welcome message informing you that you are interacting with an AI.
Before connecting to a person from the Store Associate team, you will be informed that you will be connected. When the chat window title displays a banner indicating you are connected and the Store Associate’s name, this indicates you are interacting with one of our human Store Associates.
Does Store Assistant work in different languages other than English?
Yes. Store Assistant supports multiple languages and can respond based on the language you use. Although responses in some languages may not always be perfect, multilingual support is available. If you begin in another language or ask Store Assistant to switch languages, it will continue the conversation in that language.
How do I get assistance from a human?
This chat experience is intended to provide sales assistance and support. If you wish to speak with a Microsoft representative, simply indicate what your needs are for (e.g., “Human Technical support for Surface hardware”) in the chat and the assistant will provide you with the available options for your stated need.
Sales assistance can be transferred to a person from the Store Associate team within the same chat window. Human Store Associates are available only on Microsoft.com pages; human transfer is not available on Windows or XBOX.com. For other inquiries, such as technical support, Store Assistant will provide links to official Microsoft Support sites where you can explore the available assistance options.
Does Store Assistant process or retain any data when I'm using the service?
Store Assistant experiences have been built on the Azure OpenAI service which processes some data related to service use, including prompts submitted by users. For example, the Azure OpenAI Service includes a content management system that works alongside the models to filter potentially harmful content. This system works by running both the input prompt and generated completion through an ensemble of classification models aimed at detecting misuse. The Azure OpenAI Service also stores prompts and completions for up to 30 days to monitor content and/or behaviors that suggest use of the service in a manner that may violate applicable product terms.
For more information, see the "Data, privacy and security" section of the Azure OpenAI documentation. Detailed information on data practices and processing in Azure OpenAI is available in their documentation.
Does Store Assistant process or store any data outside of the Azure OpenAI uses?
In addition to Azure OpenAI uses, Store Assistant collects limited telemetry data used by Microsoft to monitor service quality and enable improvements. Such uses may include:
- Evaluating the AI chat's efficacy (e.g., by measuring usage, session length, and the number of questions asked and answered per session). Investigating and detecting potential abuse of Microsoft Assistant.
Need more help?
Contact Support
For pre-sales support, or issues with purchasing, contact Sales support.