Marketing Intelligence
A RAG API and a website chatbot can both answer from your own content, but they are different products for different jobs. One is a developer endpoint your application calls; the other is a chat bubble your website visitors talk to. Here is how they differ and when to reach for each.
Both approaches ground answers in content you provide rather than the open web, and both refuse to invent facts. The difference is the surface. A website chatbot is an end-user experience that lives on your site; a RAG API is an interface your own code calls. ReRight ships both — AI Support Chatbot and Custom RAG API — so you can pick the surface that fits, or run them side by side over the same material.
ReRight's AI Support Chatbot is a chat bubble trained on your pages, FAQ or policy PDFs, or a help centre. It answers visitors instantly about products, pricing, and policies, and when a question is beyond it, it captures the visitor's name, email, and phone as a real lead instead of leaving a dead end. You add it with a single snippet and there is no decision tree to script — it answers from your content and hands off honestly when it cannot.
Custom RAG API turns a set of documents into a private Q&A brain behind a query API your app calls. Answers are written strictly from those documents and come with citations back to the source passage, so every response is checkable. You control retrieval — chunking, embedding model, and match method per collection — and it re-searches when the retrieved context is weak before answering. The endpoint is key-gated and never exposes your documents publicly.
Reach for the chatbot when the audience is people on your website and the goal is instant answers plus lead capture with near-zero setup. Reach for the RAG API when the audience is your own application and you need grounded, cited answers embedded in a product, a workflow, or an internal tool — especially where traceability to the source passage matters, as in policy or legal use. Many teams run both: the chatbot out front, the API inside the product.
What is the core difference between a RAG API and a website chatbot?
The surface. A website chatbot is a visitor-facing widget on your site; a RAG API is an endpoint your own application calls. Both answer from your content, but they serve different audiences.
Which one gives citations?
The Custom RAG API writes answers strictly from your documents with citations back to the source passage, so each answer is traceable. The chatbot answers from your pages and captures a lead when it cannot help.
Which one captures leads?
The AI Support Chatbot. When a visitor asks something beyond its content, it captures their name, email, and phone instead of dead-ending the conversation.
Can I use both together?
Yes. They can run over the same content — the chatbot as the visitor-facing surface and the RAG API inside your own product or workflows.