Minecraft Support Virtual Agent

Merl - Minecraft Support Virtual Agent (Beta) is an AI-based chatbot that appears on Minecraft.net's support page.^[1] The chatbot can be used to quickly get answers to Minecraft-related questions without any human assistance. It was introduced on August 29, 2025, and is based on Merl, the official mascot character of Minecraft Earth.

The Merl chatbot has received criticism from the Minecraft community. It has been reported to output false information, or not answer users' questions and instead respond to them with an "I don't know" message.^[2] It has also been criticized for its poor performance, often taking a long time to answer users' questions.^[2]

When entering the support page, a pop-up will appear on the bottom right corner to open the chat window. When opening, a chat window will appear with a brief introduction on the right, and an animated avatar of Merl in a workshop on the left. Merl's window contains two buttons on the top right, a "Hide visualization" button to hide her entirely, which can be shown again by clicking the "See visualization" button on top of the chat window, and a toggle for audio, which is also present when the visualization is turned off. Merl still plays the speaking animation when muted.

Starting a chat with Merl can be done either via voice input or by typing a question and sending it. After processing the request for a while a response will be given, if successful, an answer will be given, if not, Merl has some generic responses indicating it failed due to a number of factors. The character's speech audio and animation can be interrupted, and the text scroll can instantly finish by clicking the "Stop responding" button while Merl is speaking.

By not having the input field selected, an icon labeled "New topic" shows up to the left of it. Clicking it will open a pop-up saying "Reset conversation?" and "You'll lose your current chat." with two options, clicking "Reset Now" erases your conversation and starts it anew, clicking "Continue current chat" closes the pop-up.

Besides the introduction text, every text box after has a disclaimer stating "Responses are generated by AI and may include inaccurate information." Internet is required to use the bot: if the connection is lost and one attempts to send a message, it will fail with a notification saying "Something went wrong This feature failed to load. Please try again later.".

Due to the nature of large language models (LLMs), the responses have the potential to be different every time even for the same question, even if the content is similar, it will slightly reword the same answer.

Merl's LLM is trained on the articles present in the Minecraft Support website, as such, it can struggle with more specific facts and trivia, or other questions not available in the website, being programmed to warn a user if it fails to get an answer. It functions better as a guide to existing topics present within.

When answering a question, it will draw from that database, and if it finds a relevant article, a hyperlink can be shown at the bottom of the message text under "Learn more:", this text is not spoken by Merl.

The following are the current set of generic quotes the chatbot uses, its introduction, several responses in case it does not have an answer, and errors;

The following are older versions of previous quotes the chat bot uses;

• The background image of Merl's Workshop is actually a 3D model rather than just an image file.^[3]
  • Merl's Workshop has details not visible normally, such as their cat Peanut Butter, broken glasses on the crafting table, and a hanging sign reading "#FreeMerl."
  • The textures used for the workshop are similar, if not exactly identical, to the textures used in trailers.
    • Some textures use the default textures as seen in the game, and all 16×16 textures appear to be centered within an 18×18 area; the extra 1px border appears to have been filled, presumably to help seams render as solid rather than appear transparent.
• There is an unused version of Merl's 3D model.^[4]

• 👁 Render of Merl
  
  Render of Merl
• 👁 Merl Workshop
  
  Merl Workshop
• 👁 Buttons on help.minecraft.net used to initiate a chat with Merl
  
  Buttons on help.minecraft.net used to initiate a chat with Merl
• 👁 Old screenshot of the chat window
  
  Old screenshot of the chat window
• A video that chatting with a virtual agent
• 👁 An example of putting nonsense in the virtual agent
  
  An example of putting nonsense in the virtual agent
• 👁 An example of Merl not answering a question
  
  An example of Merl not answering a question
• 👁 Peanut Butter
  
  Peanut Butter
• 👁 Free Merl
  
  Free Merl
• 👁 Broken Glasses
  
  Broken Glasses

• 👁 Render of Merl
  
  Render of Merl
• 👁 Merl idling
  
  Merl idling
• 👁 Merl listening
  
  Merl listening
• 👁 Merl with glasses (included in the model file but unused in early versions, and later entirely removed)[5]
  
  Merl with glasses (included in the model file but unused in early versions, and later entirely removed)^[5]

• 👁 Merl Workshop
  
  Merl Workshop
• 👁 Merl's skin
  
  Merl's skin
• 👁 Merl's hair
  
  Merl's hair
• 👁 Merl's backpack
  
  Merl's backpack
• 👁 Merl's face
  
  Merl's face

• Merl's 3D Model