Your Chat Status Messages Speak Your Customer's Language

While your AI assistant works on a shopper's request, the chat widget shows a short line describing what it's doing — "Searching for products…", "Looking up your order…", "Checking store policy…". These status messages appear in the same language your AI is speaking, so the whole conversation reads as one language from the first moment to the final answer.

When a shopper sends a message, the widget shows a status line that updates as the AI moves through the work: looking something up, checking an order, preparing a recommendation. There are around 70 of these phrases, covering everything your AI can do — product search, order lookups, cancellations and address changes, returns, refunds, discount codes, cart actions, subscriptions, photo checks, virtual try-on, support tickets, and handoffs to your team.

Every one of them is shown in the shopper's language.

Rep AI follows the language setting you already use for your AI's replies, so the status line and the reply always match. Your setting decides how the language is picked:

Store's language — every shopper sees the status messages in the language you selected for your store. Translations are prepared when you set your store language, so they're ready before the first conversation.

Customer's browser language — each shopper sees the status messages in the language their browser is set to. A French visitor and a German visitor on the same store each see their own language, in the same session as the AI's replies.

Customer's preferred language — each shopper sees the status messages in the language they're actually typing in the chat. If a shopper switches language mid-conversation, the status messages follow.

There's no fixed list of supported languages. Whatever language your AI speaks to a shopper, the status messages are translated to match.

Your language setting lives in your Rep AI Console under Training AI, on the AI Personality page, in the Language section. Choose one of the three options above. If you pick Store's language, select the specific language from the dropdown next to it.

Changing this setting is all you need to do. There is nothing separate to switch on for status messages, and no list of phrases to maintain — they follow your language choice automatically.

For right-to-left languages such as Hebrew, the status line renders right-to-left and right-aligned, matching how your AI's replies are displayed in the same conversation. Longer translations — German and French phrases tend to run longer than English — fit the status indicator without clipping.

Some brands prefer a quieter waiting state. In your Rep AI Console, go to Settings, then Chat Widget, and switch off Show typing status text. The widget then shows an animated dots indicator while the AI works, with no status text at all. Leave the toggle on to show the status messages in your shopper's language.

Status messages are part of the chat widget on your website, so this is where you'll see them. Conversations on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and email don't have a live typing indicator — those channels deliver the AI's reply directly, in the shopper's language.

The first conversation in a brand-new language. On stores set to follow the customer's browser or preferred language, the very first shopper who arrives in a language you haven't served before may see the status line in your store's language for that session, while the translation is prepared in the background. Every conversation in that language after it shows the translated phrases.

Wording you can rely on. Status messages are maintained by Rep AI and aren't editable in the Console. That keeps them accurate to what your AI is actually doing at each moment, and keeps them in step as new AI capabilities are added.

A small number of internal handoff notices stay in English. When your AI passes a request between its own specialist skills, a brief notice such as "Transferring to specialist…" may appear in English. These are momentary, and the shopper-facing activity phrases and the AI's replies are in the shopper's language.

A shopper saw a status message in the wrong language. Check your language setting on the AI Personality page. With Store's language selected, every shopper sees your store language regardless of where they're browsing from — switch to Customer's browser language or Customer's preferred language if you want each shopper's own language.

I don't see any status text in the widget. Check the Show typing status text toggle in Settings, then Chat Widget. When it's off, the widget shows animated dots instead of status text.

A status message appeared in English on a non-English store. This can happen on the first conversation in a language your store hasn't served yet, while the translation is prepared. Start a second conversation in the same language to confirm it's showing translated.