SteemAdd AI review summaries to WooCommerce: a plugin you can build today
· 4 min read
WooCommerce lets shoppers leave reviews and displays them in a list. What it does not do is summarize them. Amazon has had AI-generated review summaries for years, and shoppers now expect a short paragraph telling them what people liked and what they complained about before deciding whether to read individual reviews.
Several plugins fill this gap, and some are well made. If you have a large catalogue and want a managed service, Sumzy or YayCommerce may be the right choice. If you want something lean, free to run beyond API costs, and limited to exactly one job, you can build it yourself in a few minutes.
What one build gives you
- AI-generated summary box displayed above the WooCommerce review list on each product page
- Admin settings screen for API key, model choice, and minimum review count
- Per-product summary caching in post meta to avoid repeated API calls
- Manual regeneration from the product edit screen
What it does not do
- Review import from Trustpilot, Google, or other third-party platforms
- Review moderation, spam filtering, or flagging
- Custom review forms, Q&A sections, or review photos
- Automatic regeneration when a new review is approved
Sumzy does these. This covers the part most sites use.
The prompt
Loads into the composer so you can edit it first. Nothing is built, and nothing is charged, until you send it.
Build a WordPress plugin for WooCommerce that generates an AI summary of customer reviews for each product. Add an admin settings page under WooCommerce > Settings > Review Summary with three fields: an OpenAI API key, a model selector with options gpt-4o-mini and gpt-4o, and a minimum reviews required field (default 3). On WooCommerce product pages, hook into woocommerce_after_reviews to insert a styled box above the review list with the heading 'What customers say' and the AI-generated summary paragraph. Read all approved WooCommerce reviews for the current product, send them to the OpenAI Chat Completions API with a prompt asking for a two-sentence summary of what customers like and dislike, and store the result in a custom post meta field called _ai_review_summary. On subsequent page loads, display the cached value without calling the API. On the WooCommerce product edit screen, add a button labelled 'Regenerate AI Summary' in the Product Data section that clears the meta field so the next front-end page load triggers a fresh API call. Show nothing if the product has fewer approved reviews than the configured minimum.
Why the existing plugins cost money
The paid plugins are not overpriced for what they do. Running AI summarization through a managed API, caching results across thousands of stores, and keeping the service stable is real infrastructure. What you pay for is that infrastructure plus support.
If you have your own OpenAI API key and are comfortable connecting it to a plugin, you already have that infrastructure. The plugin just needs to make the call, cache the result, and display it. That is a few hundred lines of PHP, not a subscription.
What the plugin delivers
A Steem build for this job adds an admin settings screen under WooCommerce where you enter your OpenAI API key, choose a model, and set the minimum number of reviews a product must have before a summary appears. Three is a reasonable default: a summary of two reviews is barely worth generating.
How to install and use it
Paste the prompt below into Steem and the plugin builds as a downloadable zip. Install it under Plugins > Add New > Upload, then go to WooCommerce > Settings > Review Summary and enter your API key.
The first time you load a product page with enough reviews, the plugin calls the API, generates a summary, and caches it. On subsequent page loads it reads the cache. The API call only happens again when you click Regenerate on the product edit screen.
When to use a paid plugin instead
If you want to import reviews from Google, Trustpilot, or other platforms, a paid plugin is the right choice. They have integrations for this that a custom build does not.
If you want review photos, question-and-answer sections, star-rating breakdowns, or verified-purchase badges, you are describing a full review management suite. YayCommerce and similar tools are built for exactly that scope.
Questions
- What does the OpenAI API call cost?
- For most stores, very low. A typical request sends the review text to the API and receives two sentences back. gpt-4o-mini is one of the cheapest models available, and you only pay per generation, not on every page load.
- Will the summary update automatically when new reviews come in?
- Not automatically with this build. You control regeneration by clicking the button on the product edit screen. If you want automatic updates when a review is approved, a second Steem build can add a hook to the comment status transition action.
- Does it work with Elementor and other page builders?
- It hooks into WooCommerce's native review section using the woocommerce_after_reviews action. Themes and page builders that render WooCommerce reviews in the standard way will show the summary. Setups that bypass WooCommerce templates entirely may not.
- Can I use Claude or another AI model instead of OpenAI?
- The prompt specifies OpenAI, but you can build a second version: open Steem and add to the prompt that you want the Anthropic Claude API with the claude-haiku-3 model. The structure stays the same; only the API client changes.
The prompt
Loads into the composer so you can edit it first. Nothing is built, and nothing is charged, until you send it.
Build a WordPress plugin for WooCommerce that generates an AI summary of customer reviews for each product. Add an admin settings page under WooCommerce > Settings > Review Summary with three fields: an OpenAI API key, a model selector with options gpt-4o-mini and gpt-4o, and a minimum reviews required field (default 3). On WooCommerce product pages, hook into woocommerce_after_reviews to insert a styled box above the review list with the heading 'What customers say' and the AI-generated summary paragraph. Read all approved WooCommerce reviews for the current product, send them to the OpenAI Chat Completions API with a prompt asking for a two-sentence summary of what customers like and dislike, and store the result in a custom post meta field called _ai_review_summary. On subsequent page loads, display the cached value without calling the API. On the WooCommerce product edit screen, add a button labelled 'Regenerate AI Summary' in the Product Data section that clears the meta field so the next front-end page load triggers a fresh API call. Show nothing if the product has fewer approved reviews than the configured minimum.