Imagine having a knowledgeable budtender to help you find the perfect cannabis product, right from the comfort of your computer or phone. That’s where AI budtender chatbot software comes in. These smart digital assistants are like expert advisors for cannabis enthusiasts. They make shopping for cannabis easier and more personalized.
When you shop at a dispensary in-store, you usually have the option to place an order on your own via a kiosk or ask a budtender for recommendations based on your preference.
Chatting with a budtender is usually preferred by more inexperienced shoppers.
However, some dispensaries get over 70% of their purchases from online orders, and chatting with a budtender is not an option.
So where does that leave the inexperienced users when they try to place a pre-order online?
They will likely be overwhelmed by the hundreds of product options on a crowded website.
That’s where these AI budtender chatbots step in. They’re like virtual guides that can understand your preferences and offer tailored recommendations. Whether you’re a seasoned connoisseur or just starting out, these chatbots are designed to help you find the perfect strain or product.
In this article, we’re going to explore the best AI budtender chatbot software for cannabis dispensary websites. We’ll look at their user-friendly interfaces, preference selection options, and how accurate their recommendations are. These chatbots are designed to be easy to use, so you don’t need to be a tech wizard to get the most out of them. They’re here to make your cannabis journey fun, informative, and hassle-free. Get ready to meet your new favorite digital companion for all things cannabis!
Best Virtual AI Budtenders you can add to your dispensary website.
I spent about 8 hours testing and analyzing each of the most popular AI budtender features on dispensary websites as if I were a consumer placing an order with my normal preferences. I even placed an online order at my local dispensary using one (or at least I tried to).
Terpli, Strain Brain, and Pluggi are the three most popular AI budtenders. In terms of functionality and preference selection, they are very similar. However, some provided a better user experience and more accurate results.
Let’s dive in!
StrainBrain
My experience using StrainBrain was great and I think they have a great user experience. StrainBrain includes relevant preferences that I care about when selecting a product, and the recommendations seem to be the most accurate out of the three plugins that I tested.
I like how Strain Brain shows the percentage of how accurate the product match is to your preferences. This gives me confidence that this AI budtender is using a somewhat advanced algorithm to match the products accurately. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for other solutions based on my experiences.
The initial user experience is great. It is very visual and easy to click through your preferences. There is an intrusive “loyalty sign-up” form before you get can see your recommendations. This is great from a dispensary’s marketing perspective if users sign up for their loyalty program, but as a user, this annoyed me because the AI budtender had not provided any recommendations yet and it disrupted my positive experience using the plugin.
Another drawback is the paid promotion feature within the Ai budtender. Brands can pay to get their products featured at the recommended product. I feel this defeats the entire purpose of the AI budtender providing accurate recommendations to users.
If I set my preferences, I want to see the most relevant products that match my preferences. Not irrelevant products from brands willing to pay for that ad spot.
Just ignore the feature products and I think Stain Brain is one of the best AI budtender options.
Preferences used to select your product recommendations:
- Product Type
- Effects
- Flavors
- Strength
What I like:
- Good user experience
- The chatbot word bubble button explains what it is to encourage website users to click on it.
What I don’t like:
- Loyalty Sign-up is annoying for users but this is super valuable from a marketing perspective.
- Promoted Products are shown before recommended products
Strain Brain does an excellent job pairing products to the preferences.
Terpli
Terpli is the most well-known name in the cannabis AI budtender space. They have a slick UX design that feels like the Tesla of AI budtenders. I like the simple user experience and it only takes about 20 seconds to select your product preferences and get recommendations. You can also rebrand the colors and logos to match your brand design so it looks natural on your website.
I think Terpli does an okay job matching up preferences to product recommendations, but they do have less specific preferences from the other options. I would expect an option to select flavor/aroma or some terpene profile data from a plugin called Terpli.
I’m not sure how AI is incorporated into the product recommendation process, but for the most part, it seems to be a simple menu filter.
Preferences used to select your product recommendations:
- Product Type
- Effects
- Strength
- Price Range
Issues:
My product preferences did not match up with a similar product.
I added the $0-$25 price range, as many budget shoppers might do, and all product recommendations were around $50. I manually navigated the menu and found many products met my selected preferences under $25.
Why weren’t these products included in the recommendations and why include price range as an option if it is going to be ignored?
Pluggi
I like the super simple chatbot layout for Pluggi. The user interface is easy to use and you can quickly click through your preferences without any intrusive email signup forms or ads. However, I did not get any benefit from shopping with the Pluggi Ai budtender.
I tested the chatbot multiple times on three different websites and didn’t get a single accurate product recommendation.
Preferences used to select your product recommendations:
- Product Type
- Flavors
- Desired Effects
Results:
Provides three product recommendations
Issues:
- Website one – Every product it recommended was out of stock
- Website two – When I clicked on a product, I was redirected to the flower product category page instead of the product.
- Website three – It returned an “error page” that said white label error after I clicked on a product
I eventually found one product recommendation that worked on the fourth dispensary website I tested, but I set my preferences to find a citrus-favored flower strain, and the top recommendation was a flower strain that the description clearly explained had gas and cheese flavors.
“flavors favor the true gas-heads out there, with tons of gas all the way through, and notes of sharp cheese and — for a change — acrid petrol”
The other two recommended product links did not work.
Recommendation accuracy: Poor
I tried this AI budtender over ten times before I got a single product recommendation that was available for purchase. When I did finally get a product that was in stock, the recommendation was not what I was looking for.
Based on my experience I would not recommend this plugin because it gave me inaccurate results and wasted my time as a shopper. This is the exact opposite of what an AI budtender is supposed to accomplish.
If you have had a positive experience with this software please contact us to let us know and we are happy to reevaluate it. We want to provide the most accurate and helpful feedback and it is possible that all of the websites we tested didn’t configure Pluggi correctly.
Conclusion
Based on our experience testing the most popular AI budtenders, we believe StrainBrain provided the best user experience and recommendations. However, we recommend every dispensary team does research and testing on their own to find the best solution for their needs. Remember, the goal is to provide a better online shopping experience for your customers so it would be smart to get customer feedback on which AI budtender they prefer too.
