AI Connect

AI Connect lets an AI assistant such as Claude work with your B2B store. Ask it “what does Acme pay for the 1 kg espresso beans?”, “who owes us money?” or “set up a Gold tier at 15% off coffee for these five customers”, and it answers from your live store data.

By default the assistant can only look things up. It can make changes only after you turn changes on. Even then it has to show you what a change will do, and get your confirmation, before anything happens. Every change is written to an activity log you can review.

AI Connect is part of the free plugin. With B2B Suite Pro installed, the assistant can also work with company accounts, quotes and net-terms credit, and you get two ready-made guided tasks.

What you need

• WordPress 6.9 or newer. AI Connect is built on the WordPress Abilities API, which arrived in 6.9. On older versions the screen says “Not available yet”.
• The MCP Adapter plugin. It is free, from WordPress.org, and it is how AI apps reach your store. The AI Connect screen installs it for you.
• HTTPS, for connecting over the internet. WordPress only creates the passwords assistants sign in with when the site uses HTTPS. A local or staging site can use WP-CLI instead.
• An AI app that supports MCP (the Model Context Protocol): Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any other MCP client.

Connect an assistant

Open Settings → AI Connect. The status line at the top always tells you where you are:

Status	Meaning
Not available yet	The site runs a WordPress version older than 6.9.
Turned off	AI Connect is switched off. Assistants can’t reach your store.
One step left	The MCP Adapter plugin isn’t installed or active yet.
Ready to connect	Everything is in place, but no assistant has used the store yet.
Connected	An assistant has used the store in the last 30 days. The line says when, and through which connection.

The Connect an assistant card walks you through three steps.

1. Install the MCP Adapter

Click Install & activate. You need to be an administrator who can install plugins. Otherwise the card tells you to ask one.

2. Create the AI agent

Click Create the AI agent. This creates a separate WordPress user called AI Agent that assistants sign in as. It has its own role, so it can use B2B Suite’s AI tools and nothing else in your dashboard. Every change it makes is logged under its name.

There is an optional checkbox, Also allow WooCommerce access (orders, products, customers). Leave it off unless you need it. It turns the agent into a shop manager, so an assistant could then also use WooCommerce’s own tools, outside B2B Suite’s previews and log.

3. Add a connection

Give the connection a name that says where it will be used, for example Claude Desktop — office Mac, and click Add connection.

A window opens with the setup for your AI app, including a password. Copy it now: the password is shown only once. If you lose it, revoke the connection and add a new one.

Add one connection per app or computer. That way you can revoke one without breaking the others.

The window has a tab for each kind of app:

Claude Code. Run the command it shows in a terminal. It looks like this:

claude mcp add --transport http b2b https://your-store.com/wp-json/b2b-suite/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Basic …"

Claude Desktop. Open Settings → Developer → Edit Config, add the block it shows, and restart Claude:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "b2b": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-remote", "https://your-store.com/wp-json/b2b-suite/mcp", "--header", "Authorization:${AUTH_HEADER}"],
      "env": { "AUTH_HEADER": "Basic …" }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop reaches the store through mcp-remote, which runs with npx, so the computer needs Node.js installed.

Other apps. Any MCP client that supports HTTP with a header can connect. You need:

URL	https://your-store.com/wp-json/b2b-suite/mcp
Transport	HTTP (streamable)
Header	Authorization: Basic … (shown in the window)

The window also shows the plain user name and password, for apps that ask for those instead of a header.

Click Done. The connection appears in the list with when it was created and when it was last used. Ask your assistant something like “Give me an overview of my B2B store” to check it works. The status line switches to Connected.

Local and staging sites (WP-CLI)

If the AI app runs on the same computer as the site, you don’t need a password. Under Same computer as the site? Use WP-CLI instead there is a command like this:

claude mcp add b2b -- wp --path="/path/to/wordpress" mcp-adapter serve --server=b2b-suite --user=b2b-ai-agent

This needs WP-CLI. It also works on a site without HTTPS, which makes it the easy option for local development.

What assistants may do

The What assistants may do card has the switches that decide what any connected assistant is allowed to do. The safe choices are the defaults.

Switch	Default	What it allows
Allow AI assistants to use your B2B store (top of the screen)	On	Everything. Off, and no assistant can reach the store, even with a valid connection.
Make changes	Off	Create and edit groups and price rules, move customers between groups, approve applications, change settings. Off: assistants can only read.
Also trash and reject	Off	Move groups and price rules to the Trash, and reject applications. Needs Make changes on as well.
Preview every change first	On	The assistant has to show you what a change will do, and get it confirmed, before it happens. Leave this on.
Share customer details	Off	Off: assistants see names on the account, groups and totals, but not emails, VAT numbers or registration answers. On: they see those too, and every read is logged.

With Pro, Make changes also covers offering quotes, adding company members and setting credit terms. Also trash and reject also covers declining quotes, removing company members and recording or adjusting credit.

The card at the bottom of the screen, What the assistant can do, lists every tool grouped by these switches, and marks any group that is currently off. Hover a tool for its description. The full list is in the tools reference.

How a change happens

When Make changes is on, every change goes through the same steps:

1. The assistant previews the change. It gets back exactly what would happen: before → after values, how many products a price rule reaches with example prices, which customers move. Nothing has changed yet.
2. It shows you the preview and asks you to confirm.
3. It applies the change, using a one-time confirmation code it got from the preview. The code is tied to that exact change. It expires after 10 minutes, and stops working if the data changed in between. So the assistant can’t preview one thing and then apply another.

If any item in a batch is invalid (one bad price rule out of ten, say), nothing is applied, and the preview explains which item is wrong.

What an assistant can never do

• Change its own permissions. The AI Connect switches can’t be changed through the AI tools, only on this screen.
• See secrets. CAPTCHA keys, licence keys, API keys and webhook secrets are never returned and never logged.
• Touch staff accounts. Only customers and applicants can be looked up, moved between groups or added to companies. Administrators and shop managers are refused.
• Delete anything for good. Trashed groups and price rules can be restored for 30 days. Customers in a trashed group go back to retail prices, and return to the group if you restore it.
• Run away. An assistant can make at most 60 changes a minute. Past that, changes are refused, and the site administrator gets one email about it.

Locking a switch from code

A developer can pin any switch from wp-config.php or an MU plugin, for example to keep production read-only whatever the screen says. A pinned switch shows as locked, with “This switch is set in your site’s code, so it can’t be changed here.” See the AI Connect hooks.

add_filter('smb2b_abilities_write_enabled', '__return_false');

The activity log

The Activity card lists everything assistants did, newest first: when, which tool, who ran it through which connection, and the result. Click a row to see what was asked for and, for a change, the before → after.

Filter the list by result:

Filter	Shows
Changes made	Changes that were applied
Previews	Changes the assistant previewed but didn’t apply
Refused	Calls that were blocked by a switch, a missing confirmation, or the rate limit
Errors	Calls that failed
Customer data read	Reads made while Share customer details was on

Every change, preview and refusal is logged. Plain reads are logged only while Share customer details is on, so you can see who looked at customer data. While it is off, personal details in logged inputs are masked.

Choose how long to keep the log under Keep the activity log for: 30 days, 90 days (the default), 1 year or forever.

The connection setup steps (adding a connection, revoking one) are logged too, as Connection setup.

Assistants can read the log themselves, so you can ask “what did you change yesterday?”

Revoking access

• Revoke one connection. Click Revoke next to it. Whatever uses it stops working straight away.
• Revoke all connections. Under Agent settings. Every assistant stops working straight away. The AI Agent user stays, so you can add new connections.
• Remove the AI agent. Under Agent settings. The AI Agent user and all its connections are deleted. The activity log stays.
• Turn AI Connect off. The switch at the top of the screen. Connections stay, but nothing can use them until you turn it back on.

You can also manage the agent’s passwords on the AI Agent user’s profile, under Application Passwords, like any other WordPress user.

Troubleshooting

The status says “One step left” after installing the adapter. The MCP Adapter is installed but not active. Activate MCP Adapter on the Plugins screen, then reload AI Connect.

There’s a warning that the site isn’t using HTTPS. WordPress won’t create application passwords on a site without HTTPS. Switch the site to HTTPS, or, for a local site, use the WP-CLI option.

The assistant says it isn’t allowed to make a change. Make changes is off, or, for trashing and rejecting, Also trash and reject is off. Turn on what you need, then ask again. Refusals show in the activity log under Refused.

The assistant gets a “401” or “not authorised” error. The connection was revoked, the password was mistyped, or the AI Agent was removed. Add a new connection and use its fresh setup.

The assistant can see names but not email addresses. That is Share customer details doing its job. Turn it on if the assistant needs them.

A change was refused as “too many”. The assistant passed 60 changes in a minute. Wait a minute, and check the activity log if you didn’t expect that many.

Claude Desktop doesn’t show the B2B tools. Restart Claude Desktop after editing the config. Check that Node.js is installed, since npx must be able to run mcp-remote.

Questions

Is my store data sent to an AI company? B2B Suite itself sends nothing anywhere. The data goes only to the AI app you connect, and only when you ask it something. What happens to it from there is covered by that app’s own terms. Customer emails and registration answers stay out of it unless you turn on Share customer details.

Can the assistant change prices without me knowing? Not with the defaults. Changes are off until you turn them on. When they are on, Preview every change first makes the assistant show you each change and get your confirmation before it happens. Every applied change is in the activity log with its before → after.

Does the assistant see what shoppers pay? Yes. Its price lookups go through the same pricing engine as the shop and checkout, and it explains which rule decided the price. “What does this customer pay?” gets the same answer the customer sees at checkout.

Does AI Connect slow down my store? No. It does nothing until an assistant calls it, and it adds nothing to storefront pages.

Which AI apps work with it? Any app that supports MCP: Claude Desktop and Claude Code have ready-made setup on the screen, and other MCP clients use the URL and header. Assistants and scripts can also call the same tools over the WordPress REST API or WP-CLI; see the tools reference.

Do I need Pro? No. Groups, price rules, customers, registrations, settings and price lookups are all free. Pro adds company accounts, quotes, net-terms credit and the guided tasks.