Set up the inbox assistant to draft your replies

The inbox assistant reads each message a customer sends and writes a reply for you, using what you have told it about your business. In Assist it only drafts: the reply waits above your message box in Conversations and nothing goes out until you press Send. This is the safe way to start.

Before you start

• You are an owner or an admin.
• The channels you want answered are connected (texting, WhatsApp or email).
• Optional but recommended: a knowledge base with your prices, hours and policies (see Build a knowledge base).

Steps

1. Open AI Agents › Agents and choose Inbox assistant.
2. For each channel (Text messages, WhatsApp, Email), press Assist. The line under it changes to "A reply is drafted for you. You send it."
3. Read the Instructions box. It is written for you from your business name and trade. Change anything that is wrong, for example "Always offer the Saturday candle-making workshop to anyone asking about gifts."
4. Choose a Tone (Friendly, Professional or Brief) and a Language. Auto — whatever they wrote in answers in the customer's language.
5. Fill in Business facts: hours, services and prices it may quote. Example for Wick & Ember Candle Co.: "Open 10–5 Tuesday to Saturday. Workshops £45 a person, two hours, Saturdays at 11." Anything not here or in your knowledge, it says a person will confirm. It never guesses.
6. Under Knowledge the assistant may use, tick the knowledge bases it should answer from.
7. Press Save. A message says "Saved. New messages are answered this way."
8. In the Try it box, type what a customer might send under Their message, pick the channel under As, and press Draft. The reply it would suggest appears below, with what it cost. Nothing is sent and nothing is saved.

What happens next

When a message arrives on a channel set to Assist, a card appears above the message box in Conversations, titled Suggested reply with the assistant's name.

• Press Use to copy it into the message box. Edit it if you like, then press Send.
• Press Dismiss to put it away.
• If there is no suggestion yet on a channel that is on, press Draft a reply.

When the assistant thinks a person should answer, the card carries an amber line saying why, for example "They sound unhappy" or "They asked something the assistant was not told". The draft is still there for you to read.

The card also says which channel it was written for ("Written for a text message"). Check your message box is on the same channel before you send.

At the bottom of the inbox assistant page, The last 30 days shows how many drafts were written, used, dismissed and flagged for a person.

Each draft costs a little AI usage, taken from the wallet like other AI work. Every channel starts on Off, and a channel on Off costs nothing.

For agencies

Set this up for a client from inside their account (Sub-accounts › Open). To reuse a setup you are happy with, save it as a template for your clients (see Start from a template and read agent logs).

Troubleshooting

The Off, Assist and Auto buttons are greyed out and the card says "AI is switched off for this account. Ask your account manager." The account's AI switch is off. You can still edit the instructions and hours. See Why AI stopped.

"Only the account owner or an admin can change the assistant." You are a member. Ask an owner or an admin to make the change.

No suggested reply appears in Conversations. Check the channel the message came in on is set to Assist, not Off. A draft takes a few seconds to arrive. If AI has stopped, the reason is on the AI Agents page.

The reply is vague, or says a person will confirm. The answer is not in Business facts or in the knowledge it may use. Add it, or answer the question once in the knowledge base's Gaps tab.

Save stays greyed out. Nothing has changed since you last saved, or an amber line under the button says what to fix, usually a working-hours time.

The Draft button in Try it is greyed out. Only owners and admins can test, because a test costs the same as a real reply.

Related

• Let the inbox assistant reply by itself
• Build a knowledge base
• Answer the questions your assistant could not
• Why AI stopped: the switch, the limit and the wallet