The insights block sits at the top of the report email, after the header and before the report totals. It is built with plain tables and inline styles, so it displays the same way in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail.
Turning it on for a report
- Make sure AI is set up and shows Connected. See Setting Up AI.
- Open the report in the report builder.
- Under Report Settings, turn on Show insights summary. The preview refreshes with the block at the top.
- Save the report.
The switch is off by default and is set per report, so you can have insights in a weekly report for the owner and leave a daily report for the warehouse as it was.
What the block shows
| Part | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Header | The AI insights label, a verdict badge, a one-sentence headline naming the most important change, and two or three sentences on what happened and why. |
| Verdict badge | STRONG when revenue is 10% or more above your usual level, SLOW when it is 10% or more below, otherwise STEADY — followed by DAY, WEEK, MONTH or PERIOD to match the report. “Usual” is the average of up to six earlier periods; with fewer than three, the previous period is used. Reports that show no revenue total use orders instead. |
| Key totals | Up to three tiles, picked in this order from the totals the report shows: Net revenue, Orders, Avg. order value, Gross sales, Total sales, Items sold. Each tile shows the change on the previous period (green or red, grey when under 5%) and, once there are three earlier periods, a small bar chart: your last periods in grey, this one in blue. |
| Needs attention | Up to three unusual movements, such as a refund spike or a coupon used far more than usual. See Unusual Movement Callouts. |
| Suggested next steps | Zero to three numbered actions, each a short instruction followed by the figure behind it. None are shown when the data does not support an action. |
| Footer note | States which parts were written by AI. Figures and charts always come straight from WooCommerce. |
How the summary is written
The plugin works out every number itself, then asks the AI service to describe them. The service is given strict rules:
- Use only the figures it is given — never estimate, extrapolate, or invent a number, cause, product or day.
- Only mention totals the report shows. Anything you switched off in the report is not mentioned.
- Only name a cause the data shows — for example a product, category, country, state, coupon or day whose share moved with the total, such as “most of it from the Hoodie Classic” or “refunds came mostly on Tuesday”.
- Only claim something like “best week in 6” when the earlier periods show it.
- Write the currency exactly as your store does, with no greeting, sign-off, markdown or emoji.
The more breakdown tables a report includes — top products, categories, countries, coupons and so on — the more the summary can say about why a total moved.
If the AI service cannot answer
A report is never held up by AI. If the service is slow, unreachable, out of credit or returns an unusable answer, the email is still sent on time, and the block still shows the verdict, the totals and any unusual movements under a plain headline worked out from the numbers, such as Net revenue: $4,210.00, up 12% vs last week. Only the written summary and the next steps are missing.
The reason is written to WooCommerce → Status → Logs under the sre-log source, for example Report #3: the AI summary was skipped (…). The plugin then waits 15 minutes before asking again for that report, so a broken key does not slow down every preview.
How often a request is made
One request is made per report, per period. The answer is kept for 24 hours, so the report builder preview, a test email and the real email to every recipient all reuse the same summary instead of paying for each one. A new request is made when:
- The report moves on to a new period — the next day, week or month.
- The report’s totals change, for example because you switched a total on or off.
- You save the AI Insights tab, such as after changing the model or key.
- The saved summary is more than 24 hours old.