Automate replies with the AI agent
Let an AI answer live chats from your catalog, orders and help center — with a clean handoff to humans.
Let an AI answer live chats from your catalog, orders and help center — with a clean handoff to humans.
The live-chat AI answers visitors in real time using your products, orders and help center as its source of truth. It's grounded — it looks data up with tools instead of guessing — and hands off to a human whenever a request is sensitive or it isn't sure. Turn it on under Settings → Channels → your widget → AI. It's off by default.
When the AI replies
- ·Always — the AI answers every visitor message.
- ·When no agent is available — the AI only steps in when nobody on your team is online, so humans get first crack while you're around.
- ·After a delay — the AI waits a time you set (from 10 seconds to 1 hour) for a human to reply. If no one does, it takes the conversation.
Once it has taken over, the AI answers later messages immediately instead of waiting the full delay again — so the visitor isn't left hanging mid-conversation. If a human replies in the thread, the AI steps back and stops auto-answering so it never talks over your team.
What the AI knows
Grant only what you're comfortable with.
Orders and customer profile are only available when the visitor is identity-verified (see Identify logged-in visitors). For privacy, anonymous visitors are offered a handoff instead.
The assistant's identity
Give the assistant a name and optional avatar. Visitors always see an AI badge on its replies, so they know they're talking to an assistant, not a person.
Handoff to a human
The AI can hand a conversation to your team — and tell the visitor a human will follow up — when someone asks for a person, or when the request involves refunds, complaints, or anything sensitive or uncertain. The conversation stays in the Inbox for an agent to pick up.
In the Inbox
A chat the AI has taken over is marked AI in the Inbox, so two agents don't both jump on it. Any agent can take over at any time by replying or assigning the ticket to themselves — which immediately hands control back to the human. See Handle live chats in the Inbox.
The AI looks things up instead of guessing, and your team can take over any chat at any time.