Starter kit: How to create an AI sales assistant

Picture a sales assistant that works around the clock, recalls every conversation, adapts effortlessly to each buyer’s unique style, and can draw on real-world examples or your own product information in an instant.

With Tavus Conversational Video Interface (CVI), that capability isn’t just possible—it’s ready to build today.

With a lifelike AI persona, your assistant can greet prospects by name, remember what was discussed in previous calls, explain complex product features through friendly video chats, qualify leads in real time, and even adapt its pitch based on objections or interests. And thanks to new built-in capabilities like Memories, RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), Objectives and Guardrails, and the Persona Builder, building one is no longer a developer-only project.

Technical prerequisites

You’ll need:

• A Tavus account with API access and your API key from the dashboard
• Access to a large language model (LLM) such as GPT, Gemini, Claude, or Llama
• Your sales content—either public sources, your proprietary product materials, or fine-tuned models
• A web or mobile platform where you’ll embed your assistant

No deep technical background is required, but familiarity with APIs will help. Tavus handles the heavy lifting for real-time video, conversation management, and persona creation.

Phase 1: Define your assistant’s role and goals

Start by deciding who your assistant is for and what success looks like:

• Audience: Inbound leads, outbound prospects, enterprise accounts, or SMB buyers
• Goals: Increase conversion rates, shorten sales cycles, or scale personalized outreach
• Style: Consultative expert, friendly guide, energetic motivator

Your choices here will shape:

• Persona behavior (tone, personality, language)
• Objectives and Guardrails (sales milestones, branching pitch paths)
• Content integration (product sheets, objection handling scripts, customer success stories)

Phase 2: Build your persona with ease

The Persona Builder makes it simple—no coding required. In a conversational setup flow, you’ll:

• Choose a persona type (e.g., B2B account executive, retail associate)
• Set voice, appearance, and communication style
• Add system prompts to guide tone and conversation flow
• Automatically create default Objectives and Guardrails so the assistant knows what to achieve each session

Behind the scenes, Tavus provisions everything you need: a Persona ID, default Replica settings, and a working conversational flow.

Phase 3: Give your assistant memory

A great sales assistant doesn’t just pitch in the moment—it remembers the buyer’s journey. With Memories, your AI sales assistant can:

• Recall which products a customer has shown interest in
• Keep track of objections, decision timelines, and preferences
• Pick up exactly where the last conversation ended, no reintroduction required

Enabling Memories is simple:

• In the UI: Toggle Enable Memories when creating or editing your persona.
• Via API: Add a memory_stores identifier in your Create Conversation call:

Use a unique ID for each buyer to ensure their history stays accurate and separate from others.

Memories turn your AI sales assistant into a long-term partner in the sales process, capable of building on past interactions instead of starting from scratch.

Learn more about Memories →

Phase 4: Make it knowledgeable with RAG

With RAG, your assistant can pull facts from your documents—product PDFs, CSVs with pricing tiers, image-based diagrams, or even a scraped knowledge base. Just upload them in the Tavus dashboard or via the Documents API:

Assign these documents to your conversation, and your assistant will weave that information naturally into its answers.

Phase 5: Map sales paths with objectives and guardrails

An effective sales assistant doesn’t just talk—it guides the prospect toward clear milestones and adapts along the way. With Objectives and Guardrails, you can set measurable goals for each session and define the paths buyers can take to reach them.

Here’s how to put it into practice:

• Break calls into steps such as Introduction → Needs discovery → Product demo → Pricing discussion → Next steps.
• Branch based on answers so strong buying signals move the conversation forward, while concerns trigger tailored follow-ups.
• Mark objectives as complete automatically once the buyer has reached a defined stage (e.g., qualified lead, booked demo).
• Apply guardrails to keep the conversation focused on relevant solutions, preventing tangents or irrelevant details.

When combined with other Tavus capabilities, the experience becomes even more powerful:

• Memories let the assistant remember which objectives a prospect has already completed in past conversations, so it can skip repeated topics and focus on closing.
• RAG allows the assistant to pull in precise product specs, pricing, and case studies from your uploaded documents at each step of the sales path.

You can design these flows visually in the Tavus dashboard—perfect for quickly testing new sales playbooks—or edit the JSON directly for complex, conditional branching. Either way, Objectives and Guardrails ensure the assistant stays focused, responsive, and always moving the deal forward.

Phase 6: Connect content and assessments

Once your assistant can talk and remember, it’s time to make sure it uses the right material and adapts as deals progress. With Tavus CVI, you can connect it to:

• Public APIs for trusted market or competitive data
• Your own product and sales materials uploaded through RAG, so the assistant always references accurate, up-to-date content
• Dynamic ROI calculators and qualification questionnaires generated in real time
• Define content-specific goals so each conversation maps directly to a sales stage or KPI
• Use guardrails to ensure conversations stick to approved messaging and align with your sales strategy

Here’s where the new features make a big difference:

• Memories let your assistant recall what a buyer has already heard and how they responded, so follow-ups are relevant and build momentum.
• RAG ensures every product detail, value prop, or case study is grounded in your own sales assets—not generic sales copy.

For example, after discussing a product feature, your assistant might say:

“Want to see how this feature helped one of our clients increase revenue by 25%?”

If the buyer says yes, the assistant presents the case study, answers questions, and uses Objectives and Guardrails to decide the next step—moving toward closing if they’re ready, or addressing concerns if not.

This creates a continuous loop of pitching → checking → adapting, powered by long-term memory and your own sales library, so every interaction feels targeted, persuasive, and aligned with the buyer’s needs.

Best practices

• Keep prompts simple so explanations are clear and persuasive
• Use Memories + RAG together for a truly personalized, informed sales assistant
• Review analytics to see where deals stall and refine your playbooks
• Support multiple languages for broader reach
• Ensure accessibility with captions and alternative formats

Building with Tavus CVI

Most AI sales assistants today still feel flat—chat bubbles on a screen or avatars with canned responses. With Tavus CVI, you can start building toward something more:

• Real-time, lifelike video personas that feel present in every interaction
• Persistent memory to carry context forward and retrieval-augmented knowledge to ground answers in your own materials
• Guided conversation flows that help buyers reach clear, measurable outcomes
• A no-code builder for quick starts and full API control when you’re ready to customize deeply
• Enterprise-grade privacy and compliance so you can serve even the most sensitive accounts confidently

These capabilities don’t just help you launch an AI sales assistant quickly—they open the door to evolving it over time. As your products, markets, and goals change, Tavus CVI gives you the flexibility to adapt, expand, and keep creating sales experiences that feel more human, more personal, and more effective.

Start building today

Define your persona, turn on Memories, upload your sales materials with RAG, set your sales objectives, and integrate your assistant where buyers already are.

With Tavus CVI, anyone—sales reps, revenue teams, organizations—can create a sales assistant that feels real, sells effectively, and scales effortlessly.

Ready to converse?

Get started with a free Tavus account and begin exploring the endless possibilities of CVI.

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