StoreAgent‘s AI Memory stores your store’s content as searchable vector items. These items power the AI Chat widget, so it can answer customer questions accurately. In this article, you’ll learn what AI Memory is, how it works, and what you can customise.
What is AI Memory?
AI Memory is StoreAgent’s content indexing system. When you enable it, StoreAgent reads your WooCommerce products and converts them into vector items. These items live in StoreAgent’s cloud and give the chat widget the knowledge it needs to help customers.
Without AI Memory, the chat widget has no knowledge of your store. Once you set it up, however, it can answer specific questions about your products, descriptions, and attributes.
What are vector items?
A vector item is a mathematical representation of a product or post. Unlike a keyword search index, it captures meaning rather than exact words. As a result, the AI can find the right product even when the customer’s phrasing doesn’t match the product copy exactly.
Your StoreAgent plan sets a limit on how many vector items you can store. Each published product counts as one item. If you reach the limit, StoreAgent stops adding new items until you free up space or upgrade your plan.
What data does AI Memory store?
For each WooCommerce product, StoreAgent stores the following data:
- Product name
- Short description and full description
- Price
- Product image URL
- Categories and tags
- Product attributes — for example, size, colour, and material
- Custom meta fields — if you configure them in the AI Chat settings under StoreAgent → Settings → AI Chat
For posts and pages, StoreAgent stores the title, the full content, and any assigned taxonomy terms — for example, categories.
How the initial setup works
The first time you enable AI Memory, StoreAgent runs a one-time setup process. Here’s what happens:
- First, StoreAgent creates a dedicated memory store for your site on the StoreAgent cloud.
- Next, it queues all published products — and any other enabled post types — for upload.
- Then, StoreAgent uploads them in batches of 10 using WordPress’s built-in task scheduler. This keeps the process in the background, so your site’s performance is not affected.
- Finally, a progress notice in your WordPress admin shows when the upload completes.
Before you start setup, make sure the following are in place:
- Your store is connected to StoreAgent — see Getting started with the AI Chat Bot
- You have AI Memory allowance on your StoreAgent plan. The free Lite plan includes 100 memory items; paid plans include larger allowances — see the pricing page.
- The AI Chat Bot is enabled
- At least one post type is selected for AI Memory in the Chat settings
How AI Memory stays up to date
Once AI Memory is set up, you don’t need to re-sync it manually. StoreAgent detects content changes automatically.
When you save a product, StoreAgent compares the new content to the version it last uploaded. If something has changed, StoreAgent schedules a re-upload to run 1 hour later. This delay is intentional — it groups multiple quick edits together, so StoreAgent doesn’t run unnecessary uploads for each individual save.
In addition, StoreAgent queues newly published products automatically. When you delete a product — or when you disable AI Memory for a specific product — StoreAgent removes it from the memory store as well.
Monitoring sync status in the products list
After the initial setup completes, an AI Memory column appears in your WooCommerce → Products list. This column shows the current sync status for each product.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Synced | The product is in AI Memory and up to date |
| Pending | StoreAgent is uploading this product or has it scheduled |
| Failed | StoreAgent tried 3 times and could not upload this product. AI Memory is now disabled for it. Use the retry button or the bulk action to try again. |
You can also use the Add to AI Memory and Remove from AI Memory bulk actions in the Products list to manage multiple products at once.
Upload retry behaviour
When a product upload fails — for example, due to a temporary connection issue — StoreAgent retries it automatically. StoreAgent attempts the upload up to 3 times in total. If all attempts fail, StoreAgent disables AI Memory for that product and marks it as failed in the Products list. You can then retry it manually using the retry button or the bulk action.
For developers: customising batch sizes
By default, StoreAgent uploads AI Memory data in batches of 10 products. For stores with specific performance requirements, two filter hooks let you adjust this. Both hooks enforce a minimum value of 1.
Saai_posts_per_batch
This filter controls how many products StoreAgent uploads per batch. The default is 10.
add_filter( 'saai_posts_per_batch', function( $batch_size ) {
return 5; // Upload 5 products per batch
} );Saai_posts_delete_per_batch
This filter controls how many products StoreAgent removes per deletion batch. The default is also 10.
add_filter( 'saai_posts_delete_per_batch', function( $batch_size ) {
return 5; // Remove 5 products per batch
} );Add these filters to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin. Note that StoreAgent treats any value below 1 as 1.
Troubleshooting
The AI Memory column doesn’t appear on the Products list
The column only appears once the initial AI Memory setup has been completed. If you’ve enabled AI Chat but haven’t clicked through the setup notice yet, the column won’t render. Open WooCommerce → Products, then look for the StoreAgent setup notice at the top of the admin and click Start AI Chat Setup. After the upload finishes, refresh the Products list and the column appears.
Products are stuck in “Pending” status for a long time
Uploads run through WordPress’s Action Scheduler in batches of 10. If Action Scheduler isn’t processing jobs (most often because your site’s WP-Cron isn’t firing or your host disables it), the queue can stall. Check WooCommerce → Status → Scheduled Actions and search for saai_post_data_upload — if you see many actions in “pending” state from a while ago, your scheduler isn’t running. Triggering the page manually or setting up a real cron job on your server will resume processing.
A product is stuck in “Failed” status
StoreAgent retries each upload up to 3 times before marking a product as Failed. Click the retry button on the row, or select the product and choose Add to AI Memory from the Bulk Actions dropdown to queue a fresh attempt. If it keeps failing, check WooCommerce → Status → Logs for a log entry tagged storeagent-ai-for-woocommerce — the log records the underlying error (most often a connection timeout or an oversized product description).
“You’ve reached your vector item limit” notification
Your plan’s memory allowance is full. Two options: free up space by disabling AI Memory on products you don’t need indexed (select them in the Products list, choose Remove from AI Memory), or upgrade to a plan with a higher limit at storeagent.ai/pricing. Existing items in memory continue to work — only new uploads are blocked until you make room.
Updates to a product aren’t appearing in chat responses
Saved updates are queued for re-upload 1 hour later (so quick successive edits get grouped into one sync). If you can’t wait, go to WooCommerce → Products, tick the updated product, and choose Add to AI Memory from Bulk Actions to force an immediate re-sync. To rebuild the whole memory store from scratch, use StoreAgent → Settings → Tools → Recreate AI Memory.
The setup notice keeps reappearing even after I’ve completed setup
The notice tracks setup completion via a flag in your StoreAgent admin. If it persists after a successful upload, go to StoreAgent → Settings → Tools and click Clear Post Data Hashes, then click Recreate AI Memory. This rebuilds the index from scratch and clears the notice. Plan for the rebuild to take a few minutes on a moderate catalog.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the initial AI Memory setup take?
It depends on how many products you have. StoreAgent uploads 10 products per batch in the background. Most stores with a few hundred products finish the setup within minutes to an hour. You can track progress from the notice in your WordPress admin.
Will my product updates appear in the chat widget immediately after saving?
Not immediately. When you save a product, StoreAgent schedules a re-sync for 1 hour later. This delay groups multiple quick edits together to avoid unnecessary processing. For most stores, the 1-hour window is not noticeable to customers.
What happens when I reach my vector item limit?
StoreAgent stops uploading new items and sends you a notification. Your existing items in AI Memory continue to work normally. To add more products, remove items you no longer need or upgrade your plan to increase the limit.
Can I exclude specific products from AI Memory?
Yes. From WooCommerce → Products, select the products you want to exclude and choose Remove from AI Memory from the bulk actions menu. StoreAgent removes them from the memory store and won’t re-upload them automatically.
What’s next
Need help?
If you have a question or run into any issues, we’re here to help.
- Premium users: Open a support ticket
- Free users: Visit our community forum
