Customize how AI Agent hands over to your teamUpdated 6 minutes ago

When AI Agent can't answer a customer question or fully resolve an issue, it hands the conversation over to your human team. Handovers are a core part of how AI Agent works: they make ensure customers who interact with AI Agent can always get help from a human (if they need it), and that you team leave a customer's inquiry unresolved.

This article covers:

• When AI Agent hands over
• How to set up handover topics
• How to exclude topics from AI Agent entirely
• How handovers work by channel
• Customize handover behavior on chat
• Assign handover tickets to your team

When AI Agent hands over

AI Agent will hand over a conversation to your team for three reasons: built-in conversation signals, topics you've configured, and cases where it can't generate a reliable answer.

• Conversation signals — AI Agent always hands over when it detects anger or frustration, receives an explicit request to speak to a human, or identifies a sensitive topic (including mentions of self-harm, threats of violence, threats of legal action, and requests involving financial account details). These behaviors are built in and can't be turned off.
• Your configured handover topics — AI Agent hands over for any topics you've defined as off-limits. See Set up handover topics.
• Answer quality — AI Agent reviews a draft of its response before replying. If it doesn't have enough knowledge to answer reliably, or determines the draft isn't accurate enough to send, it hands over rather than guessing. Both are opportunities for you to improve AI Agent's coverage: adding or refining knowledge helps AI Agent handle more conversations with confidence.

Set up handover topics

Handover topics let you define specific subjects that AI Agent should always escalate to your team, regardless of whether it has the tools and knowledge to answer. Use handover topics for conversations where human involvement is always preferable: for example, billing disputes, legal inquiries, or requests from high-value customers.

Add a handover topic

Write each handover topic the way a customer might raise it. AI Agent uses your description to recognize when a conversation matches a handover topic.

1. Open the dropdown menu in the top-left corner, then select  AI Agent.
   • If you have more than 1 Shopify store connected to Gorgias, use the dropdown at the top of the AI Agent menu to select a store.
2. Select Settings.
3. Under Handover and exclusion, select Handover topics.
4. Select + Add Topic, then describe the topic in plain language.
5. Select Save Changes.

Tell customers when handing over

For conversations over email and SMS, you can choose whether AI Agent notifies customers that they're being handed over to your team, or transfers them silently.

Under Handover and exclusion, use the Tell customers when handing over toggle:

• On — AI Agent sends a message letting the customer know they're being connected to a human agent.
• Off — AI Agent hands over the ticket without notifying the customer.

This toggle doesn't apply to chat conversations. Chat has its own unique handover settings.

Exclude topics from AI Agent entirely

Handover topics escalate specific conversations to your team. If you want AI Agent to ignore certain tickets completely — without attempting a response or a handover — use the Prevent AI Agent from answering rule instead.

Use this for tickets you never want AI Agent to touch: messages from specific email addresses, tickets with certain tags, or inquiries that contain particular words or phrases.

1. Open the dropdown menu in the top-left corner, then select  Workflows.
2. In the menu, locate Tools, then select Rules.
3. Select Create Rule.
4. Search for and select Prevent AI Agent from answering.
5. Select Install Rule.
6. Add conditions to specify which tickets AI Agent should ignore.

Tickets that match your conditions are tagged with ai_ignore and routed to the AI Agent ignore ticket view, where your team can handle them directly.

How handovers work by channel

The events that trigger a handover are the same across all channels. However, some channels, like chat, let you further customize how AI Agent behaves when it hands over a conversation.

The following table explains how AI Agent hands over on each channel and whether you have additional options to customize the handover experience:

Customize handover behavior on chat

When you use AI Agent on chat, you can customize several handover behaviors, including: whether AI Agent confirms with the shopper before handing over, what it says during a handover, and whether it asks the shopper for their email address. All of these settings live in the same place:

1. Open the dropdown menu in the top-left corner, then select  AI Agent.
   • If you have more than 1 Shopify store connected to Gorgias, use the dropdown at the top of the AI Agent menu to select a store.
2. Under Deploy, select Chat.

Handover confirmation

By default, AI Agent asks the shopper to confirm before completing a handover on chat. You can turn this off so AI Agent hands over the conversation to your team directly (for example, if you'd rather connect shoppers to your team as quickly as possible).

Under Handover confirmation, choose an option:

• Ask shoppers to confirm (default) — AI Agent asks the shopper if they want to speak with a member of your team before handing over.
• Hand over directly — AI Agent hands over to your team without asking the shopper.

Then select Save Changes.

When Ask shoppers to confirm is selected, AI Agent asks: "Would you like to talk to a human?" The shopper can then choose to:

• Confirm to proceed with the handover.
• Decline to continue the conversation. AI Agent responds: "No problem! What else can I help you with?"
• Ask another question. AI Agent answers it, and the potential handover is set aside.

No matter which option you choose, AI Agent will skip the confirmation step and hand over to your team immediately if the shopper explicitly asks to speak with a human.

Configure handover instructions

You can write custom instructions to tell AI Agent how to communicate during a handover. You can write separate instructions for different chat scenarios, including whether the chat is online or offline. That way, you can set the right expectations for customers based on whether your team is currently available to chat or will follow up later.

• Chat is considered online when your chat settings are set to Live during business hours or Live when agents are available.
• Chat is considered offline when your chat settings are set to Offline, when it's outside business hours, or when no agents are available.

To customize the instructions for each scenario:

1. Under Handover instructions, select a scenario: When chat is online, When chat is offline, or When an error occurs.
2. Enter the instructions AI Agent should follow.
3. Select Save Changes.

The following table shows what each scenario is for and which additional settings it has.

Share a wait time when chat is online

When a handover happens and chat is online, you can have AI Agent share an expected wait time with the shopper so they know how long to expect before a human responds.

1. Under Handover instructions, select When chat is online.
2. Turn on Send wait time, then choose an option:
   • Dynamic wait time — AI Agent shares the median wait time based on your team's last 10 chat conversations during business hours. Learn more.
   • In a few minutes — AI Agent tells the shopper they'll receive a reply in a few minutes.
   • In a few hours — AI Agent tells the shopper they'll receive a reply in a few hours. Consider turning on email capture so shoppers can leave their email and receive a reply later.
3. Select Save Changes.

Share business hours when chat is offline

When a handover happens and chat is offline, you can have AI Agent share your business hours with the shopper so that, when they leave their email address, they know when to expect a reply.

1. Under Handover instructions, select When chat is offline.
2. Turn on Share business hours in handover message.
3. Select Save Changes.

Customize the error message

If a temporary issue keeps AI Agent from completing a handover, it sends a fallback error message instead. AI Agent sends this message exactly as written. It doesn't reinterpret or change the text.

The default message is: "We're experiencing a temporary issue. Please leave your email for assistance." The message is automatically translated based on the shopper's browser language. If your chat supports multiple languages, use the language dropdown menu to enter a version of the message for each language. The dropdown is only visible when multiple languages are configured.

1. Under Handover instructions, select When an error occurs.
2. Enter the message you want AI Agent to send if a handover fails.
3. Select Save Changes.

Collect shopper email addresses when handing over

An email address is how your team follows up when a shopper leaves chat before someone can respond, or when AI Agent needs to hand over a conversation but your team is offline (they are unavailable or outside business hours).

When your chat is offline, AI Agent will always ask for an email address if a handover occurs. If you want to collect shoppers' email addresses while chat is online (agents are vailable or during business hours), you can turn on Email capture and choose whether an email address is required or optional before AI Agent proceeds with a handover.

If AI Agent already has the shopper's email address, it won't ask for it again (for example, if the shopper shared their email previously or they're signed in to your Shopify store).

To set up email capture for online handovers:

1. Under Handover instructions, select When chat is online.
2. Under Email capture, turn on Enable email capture.
3. Select Optional or Required.
4. Select Save Changes.

The following table explains what to expect when Email capture is enabled, optional or required, and what the shopper experiences when chat is online or offline.

Assign handover tickets to your team

When AI Agent hands over a ticket, your team can find it in the handover section of the  AI Agent ticket view.

To automatically route handover tickets to a specific team:

• Create a team to handle handover tickets.
• Create an auto-assignment rule to assign handover tickets to that team — use the ai_handover tag as the rule condition to target handover tickets specifically.
• Enable auto-assign tickets so tickets are automatically distributed to available agents.