Create a virtual agent in AI Studio

After you create a Marketplace Action, you can build a Virtual Agent and connect it to conversational skills that invoke the action during user interactions. This process involves creating an agent, defining skills and trigger phrases, and configuring the skill to call your Marketplace Action.

The result is a Virtual Agent that can retrieve real-time data from external systems and deliver dynamic, context-aware responses.

Create a virtual agent

1. Go to AI Studio - Virtual Agents.
2. Choose Create agent.
3. Select an agent type based on your use case.
4. Configure the agent settings.
5. Define the conversation flow.
6. Link your custom action to a trigger.
7. Test the agent to verify responses.

Which agent type to choose

Configure the agent

Define the conversation flow and attach your custom action to a trigger. This setup ensures the agent calls your action and returns results during user interactions.

Example configuration

What next

Extend the virtual agent with conversational skills to support more advanced interactions.

Create a virtual agent skill

1. Go to AI Studio - Skills.
2. Choose Create skill.
3. Enter a skill name.
4. Define the trigger phrases.
5. Save the skill.

What does a skill define

A skill defines how your virtual agent handles specific user intents. It groups related capabilities and helps the agent match user requests to the correct action.

Why link a skill to your agent

1. Makes the agent easier to discover.
2. Ensures the agent responds to the right user requests.
3. Connects user intent to the correct action.

Example configuration

What next

Test the skill with sample queries, then deploy the virtual agent to handle real user interactions.

Invoke Marketplace actions from skills

After you create and synchronize a Marketplace Action, you can invoke it from a skill in AI Studio. This action allows the skill to send user-provided data to an external API, retrieve real-time information, and use the results to generate dynamic responses.

In this section, you'll learn how to add a Marketplace Action as a tool, configure input mappings, and trigger the action during a conversation.

How to call an external API from a skill

1. Open the skill in AI Studio.
2. Choose Add Tool.
3. Select Tools Template.
4. Choose Marketplace Action.

What does the Tools Template enable

The Tools Template lets your skill execute actions defined in your Marketplace app. It connects the skill to an external API through the configured action.

When to use a Marketplace action

Use a Marketplace action when your skill needs to:

• Retrieve data from an external system.
• Trigger workflows outside AI Studio.
• Return dynamic results based on API responses.

What happens after you add the tool

The skill can call the external API during a conversation and return the response to the user in real time.

Select the Marketplace action

Select the action you created earlier, such as GetOrderStatus. This step links the skill to the external API endpoint defined in your Marketplace app.

Invoke actions in a skill

Use variables, tools, or other skills to invoke actions within a skill. Each option serves a specific purpose.

• Variables pass dynamic data between steps in the skill flow.
• Tools run predefined functions for common tasks.
• Skills reuse existing logic and support nested workflows.

How to implement the action

1. Select Variable, Tool, or Skill based on your scenario.
2. Map the selection to the required input parameters.
3. Map collected user inputs to the action parameters.
4. Confirm the action triggers correctly in the skill flow.

Example mapping

This mapping passes the user's Order ID from the skill variable to the corresponding parameter in the API request.