Work with AI-handled chats
When AI is enabled on a chat channel, the AI assistant answers new incoming chats automatically, before any human agent gets involved. It greets the customer, makes clear it's an AI, and answers their questions from your knowledge base. As an agent or supervisor, your job shifts from answering every chat to overseeing the AI — watching how it performs, stepping in when a customer needs a person, and checking what the AI did.
This article is for agents and supervisors working alongside the AI. To connect a channel and turn AI on, see Set up AI in the chat channel.
The dashboard and rollout features are part of the Customer Communication Hub app.
Processing a chat with AI
For every new incoming chat on an AI-enabled channel:
- The AI greets the customer, identifying itself as an AI assistant.
- It reads the customer's message and finds the answer in your knowledge source.
- It replies directly to the customer in the conversation.
- It keeps answering follow-up questions until the conversation ends or is handed to a human.
You don't need to do anything for the AI to respond — it runs on its own. You get involved to monitor it, to take over on handoff, or to review a past conversation. The Customer Communication Hub dashboard tracks how the AI is performing across every channel — see Inbound customer communications for the full breakdown.
Handoff to a human agent
If handoff is enabled on the channel and a customer asks to speak to a person, the AI transfers the conversation to the channel's queue. The chat then appears in the chat panel for an agent to accept, and moves to the "Waiting for response" state.
From there you handle it as a normal live chat. The AI has already gathered context in the conversation history, so you can pick up where it left off.
If a customer asks for a human but nothing happens, handoff may be turned off on that channel, or the channel may not have a queue behind it — raise it with your supervisor.
Review what the AI did
Every AI-handled chat is stored in the Chats section with its full history, including the messages the AI assistant sent.
- Open the Chats section.
- Open the conversation you want to inspect.
- Read the full exchange — customer messages and AI replies are shown together.
See why the AI answered the way it did
On any chat where the AI participated, use the Debug info action to open the AI debug window for that conversation. It shows the reasoning behind the AI's replies — which knowledge it used and how it arrived at the answer. This is the fastest way to understand an answer you found surprising, or to explain the AI's behavior to a customer.
The action is available to users with the appropriate permission. It's hidden when the AI didn't run on that chat, for example, when a gradual rollout excluded the conversation — ask your supervisor if you expect it and don't see it.
Chat states
State | What it means | Appears in the chat panel? |
|---|---|---|
Bot processing | A new chat the AI is currently handling. | No |
Completed by bot | The AI resolved the chat; it closed after a period of customer inactivity. | No |
Handed off to human | The customer asked for a person and handoff is enabled. | Yes — an agent can accept it. |
A supervisor can manually move a chat from "Bot processing" to "Completed by bot" from the conversation's progress bar. This requires elevated permissions.
The customer's experience
The AI introduces itself as an AI in its first message — customers are never misled into thinking it's a person. Replies arrive in the channel's native format; on channels that don't display rich formatting, answers are shown as plain text. Bot-handled chats close automatically after a period of customer inactivity — 15 minutes out of the box.