Below, I’m sharing the AI onboarding framework Relay.app runs that every SaaS team should copy 👇
Relay.app is one of the only companies I’ve seen do AI onboarding well.
Not “we added a chatbot” onboarding.
Real AI onboarding. The kind that gets you to value in 60 seconds and makes the rest of your onboarding flow feel slow by comparison.
If you’re building a SaaS product right now, this is the framework worth stealing.
Why traditional onboarding feels slow
Traditional onboarding waits for users to explore and self-select.
You ask what they are.
You ask what they want.
Then you send them into the product with tooltips, empty states, and settings screens.
Time-to-value becomes a scavenger hunt.
AI onboarding flips the model. You gather context, predict intent, personalize the experience, and deliver an outcome before the user has to learn your UI.
What Relay does step-by-step
1) Ask how familiar you are with AI and automation
Relay starts by asking how experienced you are with AI and automation tools.
This helps personalize the onboarding based on how much hand-holding you might need. Beginners get guidance. Power users get momentum.
Not every user should get the same onboarding.
If you want to go deeper on AI onboarding that adapts instead of treating everyone the same, this is worth reading.
2) Scan your LinkedIn URL to capture intent and context
Then Relay uses your LinkedIn profile to guess what you might be interested in.
AI onboarding needs intent and context. Without it, personalization is fake and recommendations are generic. Pulling in a profile gives the AI enough signal to make smarter guesses about what you want to do.
Personalization requires real inputs, not just a dropdown.
3) Personalize onboarding assets based on your AI-generated profile
Once Relay has that context, it adapts what you see next.
Different users see different agents and onboarding content based on what the AI thinks they’ll want to try first.
Most onboarding fails at the moment of choice. Too many options. No clear starting point.
Personalization narrows the path.
If you’re trying to improve activation without bloating the experience, this breakdown of a
product-led user onboarding experience is a solid reference.
4) Set clear expectations when you sign up
This part is not AI-enabled, but it’s excellent.
Relay is upfront about what’s included in the free plan, when you’ll be asked to upgrade, and how much it will cost.
Most AI-native apps hide this. Then users hit a credit wall and feel tricked.
Clear expectations build trust.
Trust accelerates activation.
5) Personalized recommendations
Relay recommends specific agent templates based on your profile and what you’re trying to accomplish.
Instead of forcing users to browse a template library, the product acts like a guide. It points you to the most relevant starting line.
6) It does the work for you
Here’s the payoff.
Once you pick an agent and give the AI a short prompt, Relay builds an agent for you.
Before you even spend time learning the interface, you go from:
“I want to experiment with agents”
to
“I have a working agent ready to go”
That is the new bar.
The principles behind this playbook
Relay’s flow can be summed up in three principles:
- Gather user info and intent
- Personalize the experience based on what you learned
- Get users to an outcome in 60 seconds or less
That’s the framework.
Everything else is execution.
If you want more examples to pressure-test your onboarding against, these are worth skimming:
- The deeper framework behind AI onboarding
- A swipe file of best user onboarding examples
- Practical user onboarding tips, examples, and strategies
If your onboarding still relies on product tours and empty states, ask this:
What would onboarding look like if the product did the work instead of the user?
AI makes that possible now.
Relay is proving it.
And this is quickly becoming the expectation, not the exception.
Want to apply this AI onboarding playbook to your own product?
If your activation is stuck, your onboarding is bloated, or users aren’t hitting that first win fast enough, don’t guess.
Here are a few ways to tighten the path to value and build a smoother product-led growth engine:
- Get hands-on help: Book a Free Growth Session and we’ll diagnose where users are getting stuck and what to fix first.
- Level up as a PLG operator: Become a Top PLG Operator with the ProductLed MBA™ built as a practical blueprint for mastering product-led growth.
- Start with the fundamentals: Grab the ProductLed Playbook (Free) to lock in the core PLG principles before you optimize the details.
- Keep improving weekly: Sign up for the Newsletter for practical tips, teardown-style insights, and ideas you can apply immediately.
If AI is raising the bar for onboarding, your growth strategy needs to keep pace.
