AI replies and handoff

The AI can reply to website visitors on its own, using your knowledge base. When it can't help, it hands the chat to your team.

Turn on AI replies

1. Go to AI Assistant > Automation and choose Live Chat.
2. Under AI replies, switch on AI automation.
3. Leave Human handoff on if you want the AI to pass chats to your team when it can't help.
4. Under Smart label triggers, switch on the labels the AI should answer.

Nothing runs until the widget is on your site. If it isn't yet, you'll see Widget connection required. See Install the chat widget.

AI replies work at any hour, not just when your team is away.

How smart label triggers work

Each visitor message is checked against your Smart Labels that are turned on for Live chat:

• If it matches a label you switched on here, the AI replies.
• If it matches a label you left off, the chat goes to your team.
• If it matches no label, the AI replies.

The list only shows labels enabled for live chat. If it's empty, click Configure smart labels to add one.

Human handoff

With Human handoff on, the AI hands a chat to your team whenever it can't help, or when a message matches a label you left off.

To tell the AI when to hand off, for example "Hand off whenever the customer asks about refunds", open Knowledge Base, go to System Prompts > Live chat, and click Edit with Obie under Handoff instructions. Without instructions, the AI uses its default handoff behavior.

If you turn Human handoff off, the AI answers every chat itself, and the smart label triggers no longer limit which chats it replies to. Chats the AI fails to answer still land in your inbox, so check it regularly.

What the visitor sees

When a chat is handed off, the visitor sees Waiting for a human agent with your usual reply time, or when your team is back if you're away. The widget also offers to email them your reply, so they can close the page. See Availability and reply time.

What your team sees

Handed-off chats appear in the AI Handoff view of the live chat inbox, marked unread, until someone is assigned. Your team also gets a notification. Reply as you normally would. The AI stops replying in that chat.

While the AI is handling a chat, the reply box says AI is handling this conversation. Click Take over to assign it to yourself and reply instead of the AI.

Credits

Each AI reply uses 1 credit, plus 1 more for each image the AI reads. Checking a message against your smart labels also uses 1 credit. See How AI credits work.