Customize how AI Agent hands over to your teamUpdated 4 days ago

When AI Agent can't resolve a customer's inquiry, it hands the conversation over to your team. Handovers are a core part of how AI Agent works — they ensure customers always receive help, even when AI Agent reaches its limits.

This article covers:

• When AI Agent hands over
• Set up handover topics
• Exclude topics from AI Agent entirely
• How handovers work by channel
• Customize handover behavior on chat

When AI Agent hands over

AI Agent hands over 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 for 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 also 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 to improve 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 could otherwise answer. Use them for topics where human involvement is always preferable — for example, billing disputes, legal inquiries, or requests from high-value customers.

Add 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.

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

Tell customers when handing over

On 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. Chat has its own handover confirmation setting — see Customize handover behavior on chat.

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. How the handover is communicated to the customer, and how much you can customize it, differs by channel.

Customize handover behavior on chat

On chat, you can control whether AI Agent confirms with the shopper before handing over, what it says during a handover, and how it captures contact details if your team isn't immediately available. Both 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 directly instead — for example, if you'd rather connect shoppers to your team as quickly as possible.

Under Handover confirmation, choose:

• Ask shoppers to confirm (default) — AI Agent checks with the shopper before handing over to your team.
• Hand over directly — AI Agent hands over to your team without asking the shopper.

Then select Save Changes.

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

• 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.

Regardless of which option you choose, AI Agent will skip the confirmation step and hands over to your team immediately if the shopper explicitly asks to speak with a human.

Configure handover instructions

You can write custom instructions for how AI Agent communicates during a handover, with different settings for when chat is online and offline.

Under Handover instructions, select a scenario to customize.

When chat is offline

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

When a handover occurs while chat is offline, AI Agent asks the shopper for their email address so your team can follow up later by email.

1. Select When Chat is offline.
2. Enter a prompt for AI Agent to follow during an offline handover.
   • Example: "Acknowledge the customer's issue. Let them know that someone from our team will contact them during business hours."
   • AI Agent always asks for the shopper's email when chat is offline — you don't need to include this in your prompt.
3. Optionally, enable Share business hours in handover message to let shoppers know when to expect a reply.
4. Select Save Changes.

When chat is online

Chat is online when your chat settings are set to Live during business hours or Live when agents are available.

1. Select When Chat is online.
2. Enter a prompt for AI Agent to follow during an online handover.
   • Example: "Acknowledge the customer's issue. Let them know that someone from our team will be in touch shortly."
3. Optionally, enable Email capture to collect the shopper's email address during a handover:
   • Optional — AI Agent offers the shopper the option to leave their email, but they can choose to wait on chat instead.
   • Required — AI Agent asks the shopper to enter their email before the handover proceeds.
   • Off — AI Agent doesn't ask for an email and connects the shopper directly with your team on chat.
4. Optionally, enable Send wait time to let shoppers know how long to expect before a human responds:
   • 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 enabling email capture so shoppers can leave their email and receive a reply later.
5. Select Save Changes.

When an error occurs

If a temporary issue keeps AI Agent from completing a handover — including requesting the shopper's confirmation — 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." This is automatically translated based on the shopper's browser language. If your chat supports multiple languages, use the language dropdown to enter a version for each language. The dropdown is only visible when multiple languages are configured.

1. Select When an error occurs.
2. Enter the message you want AI Agent to send.
3. Select Save Changes.

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.