A local guide chat for your news site
A chat for readers: what is near them, the roads and the weather, live.
What it does
A chat for your readers: an AI agent that answers "what is near me", "is the road closed", "will it rain" with live places, road incidents and the forecast, in the paper’s friendly voice.
In one sentence: When someone writes in its chat, let the AI agent answer.
Why it is useful
Readers come back to the site that answers their everyday questions. The chat keeps them on your pages with live answers.
Who it is for
Media, newsrooms & publishing. Newsrooms, broadcasters, publishers and media sales teams who need local stories, audiences and advertisers first. Every use case for media & publishing
Best use cases
- A local news website
- A city magazine’s app
- A community radio’s site
What each run gives you
- A chat page you can embed
The time it saves
Whenever someone writes in its chat. Doing the same work by hand takes about 5 minutes each time, so it saves about 25 hours a month (an estimate). It is easy: 2 blocks and 3 tools.
The flow, block by block
- ChatTrigger · ChatStarts the flow when someone writes in its chat: the chat window in the editor, or a chat page you can share or put on your website.
- City desk assistantxMap AI · AI agentAn AI agent: for each incoming message it thinks, uses the blocks you link to its Tools port (data, xMap AI, lookups, your tables, other flows, apps), remembers the conversation and writes an answer in {{reply}}.
- Places nearbyxMap data · Nearby placesA tool the AI agent uses when it needs itPlaces around a point from xMap’s own places database (300M+ places, refreshed every month): pick the types of place (more than 5,000, such as Restaurant, Cafe, Pharmacy, Hospital or Gas station, or a whole group of them) and how far to look.
- Road problemsxMap data · Traffic incidentsA tool the AI agent uses when it needs itRoad closures, roadworks and other incidents on online maps right now, with where they are.
- The forecastxMap data · Weather forecastA tool the AI agent uses when it needs itThe weather forecast (Open-Meteo, from national weather services) for up to 16 days: temperature, rain, wind and UV.
Every block can be changed after you use the template: the city, the type of place, the score, where the results go.
Use it now
Answer a few questions, enter your work email, and it runs in your own account, kept running until you pause it. Use this template.
How to set it up
- AI agents with tools and memory: An agent that answers questions using your blocks as tools.
- A chat page for your flow: Let anyone talk to a flow on a page or on your website.
- Answer on WhatsApp, Telegram or Slack: An assistant that replies in the same chat.
- The map: everything your AI employees found: Results, Map: every result as layers on one map, with filters, a time slider, a card for each result and Compare sites.
- How to build a WhatsApp assistant that answers about places: Customers ask on WhatsApp; an AI agent searches and replies.
- AI agent: An AI that decides which tools to use to answer or complete a task.
- How to run your AI employees from WhatsApp: Ask, build, run and pause flows from your phone, by message, voice note or call.
More for Media, newsrooms & publishing
- Children per school, district by district: Where children live far from a school, as a ready data story.
- Newly opened businesses for my advertising sales team: New businesses scored as advertisers, with the owner, every weekday.
- Where to put the next billboard: Blocks with many residents and shops, ranked as billboard sites.
- New in town: a weekly column draft: A draft "new in town" column every Thursday, from what opened this week.
- Newsstands near stations, for magazine distribution: Newsstands near every station, for the magazine route list.
- New cinema screens for my film distribution team: Cinemas in your region, chain or independent, with the programmer.