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AI Suite

What it does

AI Suite adds a sidebar metabox to every WooCommerce product, plus four bulk actions on the Products list, that generate long descriptions, short descriptions, SEO meta (title + description), and image alt text using your own API key. It supports four providers — OpenRouter (recommended, one key across GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, Llama, Mistral and more), Google Gemini direct, OpenAI direct, and Anthropic direct. Generations use product name, categories, tags, price, your per-product brief, and your target keywords as context. The image alt text generator is vision-capable on all four providers and reads the featured image directly.

Your API key is stored as a WordPress option on your own site. Asteris calls the provider endpoint directly — there is no proxy server, no markup, and no monthly token allowance imposed by Asteris. This module replaces AI Engine (~USD 79/yr), GetGenie (~USD 99/yr), and Rank Math Content AI (~USD 199/yr).

Quick start

  1. Go to WP Admin → Asteris → AI Suite and pick a provider. OpenRouter is the recommended default — one signup gets you every major model.
  2. Paste your API key (OpenRouter keys start with sk-or-v1-, Gemini with AIza, OpenAI with sk-, Anthropic with sk-ant-).
  3. Pick a model. For OpenRouter use the preset dropdown — Auto-pick, Best quality (GPT/Claude/Gemini), Balanced, or Free/cheapest. For direct providers, edit the model slug field.
  4. Click Test connection. A green tick with a sample reply confirms the key + model combination works.
  5. Set tone, language (ISO 639-1 code), and an optional brand-voice paragraph that is injected into every generation.
  6. Save settings, then open any product. The Asteris — AI Suite metabox appears in the sidebar with four generator buttons.
  7. For multiple products at once, select rows on Products → All Products, choose an Asteris AI bulk action, and confirm in the progress screen.

Settings reference

SettingWhat it doesDefaultValid values
ProviderWhich AI service to call.openrouteropenrouter, gemini, openai, anthropic, disabled
API keyBearer token for the chosen provider. Stored as a WordPress option.emptyProvider-specific prefix
OpenRouter presetHigh-level model picker that maps to a slug.autoauto, gpt, claude, gemini, balanced, cheap, custom
OpenRouter model slugRaw slug sent to OpenRouter. Editable only when preset is Custom.openrouter/autoAny slug from openrouter.ai/models
OpenAI modelSlug for direct OpenAI calls.gpt-4o-miniAny OpenAI chat-completions model
Anthropic modelSlug for direct Anthropic calls.claude-haiku-4-5-20251001Any Anthropic Messages model
Gemini modelSlug for direct Gemini calls.gemini-2.5-flashAny Gemini generateContent model
ToneWriting register applied to descriptions.professionalprofessional, friendly, luxury, playful, direct
LanguageOutput language for generations.enISO 639-1 (en, fr, de, es, it, ja, …)
Brand voiceFree-text style guide injected into every prompt.emptyUp to several paragraphs
Monthly request capSoft ceiling on generations per calendar month.1000 (unlimited) to 100000
Show long description buttonToggle the long-description generator.1 (on)0 or 1
Show short description buttonToggle the short-description generator.1 (on)0 or 1
Show SEO meta buttonToggle the SEO meta generator.1 (on)0 or 1
Show alt text buttonToggle the image alt text generator.1 (on)0 or 1

Option keys are prefixed by the core module helper — the canonical names are asteris_ai_suite_provider, asteris_ai_suite_api_key, and so on. Usage data lives under asteris_ai_suite_usage (rolling 12-month rollup, keyed by YYYY-MM).

Common workflows

Generate copy for a single product

  1. Open the product editor. The Asteris — AI Suite metabox is in the sidebar.
  2. Fill Target keywords (comma-separated, primary first) and an optional Brief / key facts paragraph. Both auto-save with the product.
  3. Click one of the four generator buttons. The preview shows the output.
  4. For long or short descriptions use Replace, Append, or Copy. For SEO meta, if the Asteris SEO metabox is on the page, the title and description fields are auto-filled — otherwise paste into Yoast or Rank Math. For alt text, copy and paste into the Media Library alt field.
  5. Click WP Update to persist any write-back.

Bulk-generate descriptions across the catalogue

  1. Go to Products → All Products and select rows (filter by category, stock status, etc. as needed).
  2. From the bulk-action dropdown pick one of Asteris AI — Generate long / short / SEO / alt text.
  3. You are redirected to a progress screen. If selection exceeds 500 products a cost-preview warning appears; selections over 5000 are refused outright.
  4. Choose Skip products that already have content (recommended) or Force overwrite everything, then Start.
  5. The runner drains the queue one product at a time over AJAX. Closing the tab pauses the job — reopen the URL with the token to resume within an hour.

Author a store-wide brand voice

  1. Open AI Suite → Settings and find Brand voice.
  2. Write a paragraph describing your audience, forbidden words, preferred phrasing, and country-of-origin conventions.
  3. Save. The text is appended to the system prompt on every generation across every product and every bulk job.
  4. Re-run a single product generation to confirm the voice carries through before kicking off a bulk job.

Cap monthly spend

  1. Set Monthly request cap to a number you are comfortable with (e.g. 500).
  2. The metabox footer shows running usage. Once the cap is reached, both the per-product AJAX endpoint and the bulk processor refuse new requests until the next calendar month.
  3. Set to 0 for no internal cap (the provider still bills you per call).

Recover from a deprecated OpenRouter model

  1. If OpenRouter rejects the configured slug, AI Suite automatically retries the call with openrouter/auto and persists the change so the bad slug is not retried.
  2. A warning banner appears on the settings page naming the stale slug.
  3. Pick a fresh preset (Auto-pick, Best quality, Balanced) and save — the banner clears.

For developers

Stability commitment. Hooks, filters, REST endpoints, and shortcodes documented below follow semver. Breaking changes happen only on major version bumps, with at least one minor version of deprecation notice in advance. Anything not listed here (internal AJAX handlers, settings save handlers, internal plumbing hooks) is implementation detail — those may change without notice.

AI Suite currently exposes no public extension points. All AJAX actions (asteris_ai_test, asteris_ai_generate, asteris_ai_save_inputs, asteris_ai_bulk_process), the admin_post_asteris_ai_save settings handler, and the bulk_actions-edit-product entries are internal to the admin UI and may change without notice. Post-meta keys written by the generators are listed in the Settings reference. If you need a hook for a specific integration use case, raise it on the support forum.

Troubleshooting

Generate button does nothing or returns “Permission denied”

The AJAX handler requires edit_products and a valid asteris_ai_nonce. The nonce is printed by the metabox, so if the metabox is hidden via screen options or a role plugin strips the capability, generation fails. Check Screen Options → Asteris — AI Suite is ticked and confirm the role has edit_products.

”Monthly request cap reached”

The single-product AJAX and the bulk processor both consult get_monthly_usage() against the Monthly request cap setting. Raise the cap (or set to 0 for unlimited) under AI Suite → Usage limits. The counter rolls over at the start of each calendar month.

”OpenRouter rejected the configured model”

The configured slug is deprecated or misspelled. AI Suite auto-falls-back to openrouter/auto and persists the change so subsequent calls do not retry the bad slug. Pick a fresh preset on the settings page and save to clear the warning. Browse current slugs at openrouter.ai/models.

Alt text generation returns generic copy

Vision support requires the featured image to be accessible. AI Suite fetches the WordPress large size (~1024 px) and base64-encodes it. If the image lives on an external CDN that blocks wp_remote_get from your server, the call falls back to a text-only prompt and quality drops. Ensure the featured image is locally hosted or the CDN allows server-side fetches.

Bulk job stalls or shows “Queue expired”

The queue transient has a 1-hour TTL. If a job is paused longer than an hour, the transient is garbage-collected and the runner cannot resume. Restart the bulk action from the Products list. For very large catalogues split into batches of a few hundred — the hard cap is 5000 per job and the warn threshold is 500.

Known plugin conflicts

  • Other AI-writer plugins (AI Engine, GetGenie, Rank Math Content AI) — no hard conflict, but running them on the same product editor adds two metaboxes doing the same job. Pick one.
  • Role / capability plugins that strip edit_products from shop managers will silently disable the generate buttons.
  • External-CDN media plugins that block server-to-server image fetches reduce alt-text quality (see Troubleshooting above).
  • No conflicts are currently known with Yoast SEO, Rank Math, WooCommerce core, Polylang or WPML. If you find one, please report it on the support forum.

What is in Free vs Paid

AI Suite is a paid-tier module. Available in Starter, Pro, Agency, and Founder Lifetime. It is not included in Asteris Free and there is no lite version of this module in the free plugin.

Changelog

VersionDateNotes
1.9.72026-06-01Documented in detail. Previous entries in plugin changelog.