Setting an AI agent as default responder

Making the AI agent the first responder on a channel. A significant change, and reversible in one click.

Making the AI agent the first responder on a channel. A significant change, and reversible in one click.

Set it

1. Open the AI agent's channel settings.
2. Set it as the default responder for the channel.
3. Confirm the handover path.
4. Tell your agents what changes for them.
5. Watch the first day closely.

What changes

Everything arriving on that channel meets the AI agent first, including the questions you did not anticipate. Until now it handled what it recognised; now it is the front door.

The prerequisite

Transcripts showing it already handles your common cases well, and a handover that works reliably. Making an agent the default before both are true converts a limited problem into a general one.

Volume changes the arithmetic

A behaviour that occurs in one conversation in fifty is invisible at low volume and constant as the default responder. Check the transcripts specifically for the rare wrong answers, because those become frequent.

Tell the team

Agents will see fewer, harder tickets, each arriving with a transcript. That changes their day, and it is worth saying rather than letting them discover it.

Keep the exit obvious

As the default responder, the agent is now between every customer and your team. The route to a person has to be immediate and unmissable, or the automation reads as a barrier.

Switch it back if needed

One setting. Knowing that, and having said so to the team, makes it a reasonable thing to try rather than a commitment.

See also

• Setting up escalation to a human
• Publishing an AI agent
• Reviewing conversation transcripts