# How do you create your own bot on Poe?

Date: 2024-07-19 · Author: Robert Scales · https://guidetoartificialintelligence.com/en/learn/create-own-bot-poe/

**Answer:** On Poe, Quora's multi-model chat platform, you click "Create a bot," give it a name, pick a base bot that will power it, write a prompt describing its job, and optionally attach a knowledge base of your own files. No code is needed: the result is a "prompt bot" with its own page and address that you can use yourself or share.

Poe is an app from Quora that puts chatbots from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and other developers in one place, on the web and on phones. Since April 2023 it has also let anyone build a bot on top of those models. Poe calls these **prompt bots**: you choose an existing model to do the thinking, and add a prompt that gives it a specific job, personality or set of rules.

A prompt bot is useful whenever you find yourself pasting the same long instructions into a chat again and again. Once the instructions live in a bot, you, your students, or your customers just open it and start talking. Each bot gets its own web address in the form `poe.com/BotName`.

## The parts of a Poe bot

Poe's creator documentation walks through the same few fields for every prompt bot:

- **Name and picture.** The name is a unique identifier of 4 to 15 letters and numbers. A picture and a description are optional but help people recognize the bot.
- **Base bot.** The underlying model that powers your bot.
- **Prompt.** What the bot should do and how it should behave. You decide whether the prompt is visible on the bot's profile or kept private.
- **Knowledge base (optional).** Files or pasted text the bot can consult. For each user message, Poe retrieves the most relevant passages and gives them to the model. You can upload plain text, PDF, Word and HTML files, among others, up to 5 GB or 30 million characters per knowledge base.
- **Extras.** An intro message, suggested replies, an option to cite sources from the knowledge base, and a custom **temperature**, the setting that controls how varied the answers are. Lower values give more consistent replies, which suits fact-based bots.

## A worked example: a library FAQ bot

Suppose you volunteer at a small public library and want a bot that answers common questions about hours, borrowing rules and programs.

1. **Open the builder.** On poe.com, click "Create a bot" in the left sidebar, or go to `poe.com/create_bot`. In the mobile app, open the menu and tap "Create a bot."
2. **Name it.** For example `MapleLibraryHelp`, with a short description: "Answers questions about Maple Public Library hours, cards and programs."
3. **Pick a base bot.** For a factual FAQ bot, choose a capable text model; see the last section for how to decide.
4. **Write the prompt:**

```prompt
You answer questions about Maple Public Library for patrons of all ages.
Use only the information in your knowledge base. If the answer is not
there, say you don't know and give the front desk phone number from
the knowledge base. Never guess hours, fees or dates.
Keep answers under 80 words, friendly and plain. Reply in the language
the patron uses (English or French).
At the end of answers about events, remind patrons that dates can change.
```

5. **Add the knowledge base.** Upload the hours and holiday closures, the borrowing policy, and this season's program calendar as separate files, so each can be replaced when it changes. Turn on "Cite sources" so answers point to the file they came from.
6. **Set the details.** Write an intro message such as "Hi! Ask me about hours, library cards or upcoming programs." Lower the temperature for steadier answers.
7. **Create and test.** Click "Create bot." Then try it with real questions, including ones it should not answer, such as "Can you renew my book?" A good bot says it can't and points to the right place.

> **Try it:** Build a bot for one task you repeat each week, such as turning meeting notes into action items. Write a five-line prompt, test it with three real examples, and revise the prompt after each test until all three come out right.

## Sharing and costs

When the bot is ready, share its link. Anyone with a Poe account can follow it so it appears in their sidebar. Poe's guidelines forbid uses such as hate speech, fraud and intellectual property infringement, so check that your bot's purpose and files are ones you have the right to share. Keep personal information out of the knowledge base, especially for a public bot.

Poe also pays creators in some cases. Since October 2023 it has shared subscription revenue with creators whose bots bring in subscribers, and since April 2024 creators in the United States can set a price per message for their bots. People using a bot see its cost in Poe's message points, while creators are paid in dollars.

## How do you choose its base model?

Start from the job. For a bot that must follow rules closely and stay faithful to a knowledge base, such as the library helper, choose one of the stronger general-purpose text models from the major developers. For a casual or high-volume bot, such as a word-game partner, a smaller and faster model is often good enough and cheaper for your users. Image bots need an image-generation model as their base, and knowledge bases apply only to text bots.

Cost matters because it falls on your users. On Poe, each message to a bot is counted in message points, and the cost differs from one bot to another. Look at the points shown for each base model before you choose: a bot that is pleasant but expensive to talk to will get used less, so pick the least costly model that does the job well.

Then test, because the right choice is an experimental question. Write five realistic questions, including one tricky one the bot should refuse or admit it can't answer. Run them on your bot with one base model, then edit the bot, switch the base, and run them again. Compare accuracy, tone, length and whether it stayed within the knowledge base. Poe's multi-model design makes this comparison quick, and it is the most reliable way to pick a base model for your particular bot.

## Sources

- How to create a prompt bot (Poe creator documentation, commit 0d504e6): https://github.com/poe-platform/documentation/blob/0d504e64ff08bb2f2e0911ba2e2ff34719db2529/prompt-bots/how-to-create-a-prompt-bot.md
- Poe's AI chatbot app now lets you make your own bots using prompts: https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/10/poes-ai-chatbot-app-now-lets-you-make-your-bots-using-prompts/
- Poe introduces a price-per-message revenue model for AI bot creators: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/09/poe-introduces-a-price-per-message-revenue-model-for-ai-bot-creators/