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Version: 10All Creatio products

Set up AI in the email channel

AI in email ships ready to run. With the out-of-the-box configuration, you can connect a mailbox, turn AI on, and have it drafting replies inside cases in a few steps — no tuning required. It starts in the safe Draft for review mode, so a person reads every reply before a customer does. Once it's working, you can shape it to your needs and, when you trust it, let it send automatically.

This article is for supervisors. For how agents work with AI drafts once it's live, see Review and send AI email replies.

note

The AI features are part of the Customer Communication Hub app.

Working with the email channel requires the Case Management app — the AI works inside cases. Working with knowledge sources requires the Creatio.ai Knowledge Library.

Complete these once, up front — most "AI isn't drafting" problems trace back to one of them:

  1. Connect an email mailbox (IMAP/SMTP or Microsoft Exchange) and confirm it's syncing.
  2. Seed and tag your knowledge base with a few clean, on-topic articles, tagged customer support. The built-in Customer Support Agent answers only from the dynamic "Customer support articles" folder — no tagged articles means the AI has nothing to answer with.

Connect a channel and turn on AI​

  1. Open the Customer Communication Hub section, open the Communication channels panel, go to the Email section, and click Add channel.

  2. On the Set up channel step, choose a mailbox — pick an existing one, or click Connect new mailbox.

  3. Select the case registration category applied to all cases created from incoming emails to this mailbox.

  4. Keep or adjust the AI settings on the AI setup step. (Optional)

    Out of the box, AI is enabled in Draft for review mode, with the "Sofia" persona, a friendly tone, and the Customer Support Agent connected.

  5. Click Finish to add the channel.

  6. Send a test email to the address shown on the final step. (Optional)

As a result, an incoming email creates a case, and an AI-generated draft reply appears in the case timeline, written from your knowledge base. A person reviews and sends it — the AI never sends on its own in Draft mode.

Change the AI agents​

Each channel ships with the Customer Support Agent connected, which answers from your tagged knowledge base. The AI capabilities block, in the mini-page and on the AI Automation tab, lists the connected agents as a tree, with their sub-agents and knowledge sources.

  1. Create your own agent.
  2. Click Change agents on the channel's AI Automation tab.
  3. Select the required agent.

The connected agents and their knowledge sources are shared across all channels — even though you open Change agents from a single channel's AI Automation tab, the change applies to every email channel.

Change the AI assistant personality​

The persona controls the name and tone of voice the reply is written in. Out of the box: "Sofia," friendly tone. Change it on the AI Automation tab, or via the "AI Personality for Chats" and "AI Tone of Voice for Chats" lookups.

Adjust the general channel settings​

The channel's General settings tab has the following sections:

  • Mailbox — the configured address (read-only), an optional alias (a single alternate address for customers who write to a different address), and an optional description for internal notes.
  • Case registration — the required category applied to all cases created from incoming emails to this mailbox.
  • Language — the message language, from your active system languages, with an Always use mailbox language option. It sets the language for the message templates agents use, not the AI's replies.

Let AI send replies automatically​

Draft for review is the safe default. When you trust the drafts, switch the channel's reply mode to Auto-reply so the AI sends answers that clear your quality threshold itself.

Reply mode

What happens

Audience rollout

Draft for review (default)

AI posts a draft in the case timeline; an agent reviews, edits if needed, and sends. AI never sends on its own.

Ignored — a draft is always created.

Auto-reply

AI scores each reply and, if it's confident and the answer fully resolves the case, sends automatically. Anything less falls back to a draft.

Applies — only the configured percentage of matching emails are auto-handled.

Auto-reply safety presets set how confident the AI must be to send:

Preset

Behavior

Threshold

Confident

Send only very safe answers

0.85

Balanced (default)

Balanced

0.70

Bold

Send more answers, tolerate some risk

0.55

In auto-reply mode, every generated reply gets a Quality Score before the send-or-draft decision, based on how well the claims are supported by retrieved knowledge, whether the reply addresses the customer's question, and whether there was enough relevant knowledge to answer. If the reply would ask the customer a clarification question, it's always left as a draft, never auto-sent.

When AI auto-sends a reply, the case moves to "Resolved" automatically.

Roll out auto-reply gradually​

  1. Start in Draft for review. AI drafts, humans send.
  2. Send a few representative emails and review the drafts.
  3. Switch to Auto-reply with a small audience rollout, for example 10–20%, on the Balanced preset.
  4. Watch the dashboard and check that the auto-sent replies are good and the rest fell back to drafts.
  5. Increase the rollout gradually as confidence grows.
  6. Move to full auto-reply once quality holds, tightening to Confident for only the safest answers, or loosening to Bold for more coverage.

Tune the guardrails​

Guardrails protect cost and behavior. All are system settings:

  • Max drafts per contact per day — "AI email max drafts per contact day" (AiEmailMaxDraftsPerContactDay code). Out of the box, 50.
  • Max drafts per case — "AI email max drafts per case" (AiEmailMaxDraftsPerCase code). Out of the box, 10.
  • Shared monthly AI budget — "AI monthly budget actions" (AiMonthlyBudgetActions code). Out of the box, 20,000 actions, shared across chat and email; resets at the start of each month (UTC).

Once a draft limit is reached, the AI stops generating for that contact or case; when the monthly budget is reached, it stops generating responses.

Troubleshoot​

  • No draft generated at all — re-check the knowledge base has customer support-tagged articles, the mailbox is registering cases, and AI mode is saved.
  • In auto-reply but nothing sends — the Quality Score is below your threshold, the reply contains a clarification question, or the audience rollout is too low.
  • AI drafts but says it can't confirm the answer — the knowledge base lacks relevant tagged content, or the knowledge source isn't bound to the active agent.
  • To debug, on any case where AI participated, use the Debug button to see the Quality Score and the knowledge used. This requires the CanDebugSkills permission.

Good to know​

The system prompt is extended with the persona description, tone of voice, and channel-specific behavior. If you've already customized the system prompt, these additions aren't applied to it — persona and tone changes you make in the UI don't take effect on a customized prompt.

See also​

Inbound customer communications

Review and send AI email replies

Set up AI in the chat channel