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Set up and use AI Agent on Chat (Beta)Updated a day ago

Beta feature: AI Agent on Chat is currently in Open Beta. It is available to any customer that subscribes to Automate. During the Beta, you can expect ongoing changes as we work to improve AI Agent on Chat based on your usage and feedback. Please note that AI Agent Actions are not currently supported on Chat. 


When you set up AI Agent for your store, you can choose to connect it to your Chat channels.

For stores with a high volume of Chat tickets, enabling AI Agent on Chat allows you to automate repetitive tickets for your team and gives shoppers relevant answers to questions about your products, policies and brand in a conversational format.

In this article, you'll learn how to connect AI Agent to a Chat, plus what to expect when it sends messages to customers or hands over tickets to your team.

Requirements

  • You must have an active Automate subscription
  • You must have Lead or Admin permissions to set up AI Agent
  • You must have a Shopify store connected to Gorgias

    • AI Agent is not supported on stores that use BigCommerce, Magento or WooCommerce

Before you begin

In order to use AI Agent to answer shoppers’ questions in Chat you must first:

  • Install Chat on your website or Help Center and connect it to the store where you want to use AI Agent
  • Onboard AI Agent with knowledge from your Help Center, website, or create Guidance.

    • Onboarding equips AI Agent with the information to answer questions about your brand, products, and to follow your support processes.

Connecting AI Agent to a Chat

Once you’ve installed Chat and onboarded AI Agent, you can connect AI Agent to your Chat so it can start answering customer questions.

  1. Go to Automate from the main menu
  2. Select your store from sidebar, then click on AI Agent
  3. In the Settings menu, open the dropdown menu under Chat Settings
  4. Select one or more Chats from the list
  5. Select Save Changes

When you’re ready, select the ON/OFF toggle to Enable AI Agent on Chat. AI Agent will automatically start to respond to tickets that you receive through Chat.

Note: Article Recommendations are automatically disabled when you enable AI Agent on Chat. We do this to create a better experience for shoppers and to avoid conflicting messages with AI Agent. 

Settings page showing the configuration options for an AI Agent. The "Enable AI Agent on Chat" toggle is turned on, with a dropdown labeled "AI Agent responds to tickets sent to the following Chats" set to "Good Things Team." Below, the "Enable AI Agent on Email" toggle is turned off.

How AI Agent responds to Chats

When a shopper enters a message in Chat, AI Agent automatically picks up the ticket to respond.

  • To answer a shopper’s question, AI Agent replies using knowledge from your Help Center, website, Guidance and other resources
    • You can add or update knowledge in AI Agent’s settings to onboard it with more information about your products and support processes.
    • Note: as part of the Beta phase, AI Agent currently cannot share order information or customer data from Shopify in Chat (read more about Limitations). Tickets that require information about a shopper’s order may be handed over to your team.
  • AI Agent uses your tone of voice settings when speaking with customers. On Chat, your instructions for tone of voice are adapted to be more conversational, quick and concise.
  • AI Agent automatically hands over the ticket to your team if:
    • It lacks confidence in its answer
    • It encounters a listed handover topic
    • It does not find any relevant knowledge to answer the shopper’s question

A Gorgias chat interface. The user asks, ‘What’s the battery life like on this speaker? And is it waterproof?’ The automated response says, ‘The battery lasts up to 12 hours. Totally waterproof too! 🌊🔋’ Below, the system asks, ‘Was that helpful?’ with buttons for ‘Yes, thanks’ and ‘No, I need more help.’ A text input field is also visible at the bottom.

Handovers on Chat

AI Agent automatically hands over tickets to your team whenever it lacks confidence in an answer, encounters a listed handover topic, or does not find any relevant knowledge to answer the shopper’s question.

The status of your Chat (online or offline) changes how AI Agent hands over tickets. You can change the status of your Chat in Live Chat settings.

  • When your Chat is set to Offline→ because no human agents are available to receive a handover, AI Agent responds to the shopper and requests their email so that your team can follow-up later
    • AI Agent says: “Please leave your email address and we’ll get back to you”
      A Gorgias Chat interface on a website. The user asks, ‘Sweet, any warranty?’ The automated response says, ‘I'm sorry you're having a warranty issue, I'll pass your request over to the right team who can help you out.. Please leave your email address and we’ll get back to you.’ Below, there is an input field labeled ‘Email *’ with a placeholder ‘your@email.com’ and a blue arrow button for submission.
  • When your Chat is set to Online → AI Agent lets the shopper know that it will connect them with someone from your team (including an estimated wait time). AI Agent can also use Email Capture to collect the shopper’s email so your team can follow-up later.
    • If Email Capture is set as Optional → AI Agent gives the shopper the option to leave their email and receive a follow-up from your team. The shopper may choose to continue on chat and receive a live response instead.
    • If Email Capture is set as Required → AI Agent asks the shopper to enter their email so they can receive a reply from your team later.
    • If Email Capture is disabled (set to Off) → AI Agent does not ask for the shopper’s email. It proceeds to connect the shopper with someone from your team on Chat.

Assigning handover tickets to a team

Whenever AI Agent hands over a ticket, your team can find it in the handover section of the ✨ AI Agent ticket View. Learn more about AI Agent ticket Views.

Alternatively, you can automatically assign handover tickets from AI Agent to available agents on a team using Rules.

Abandoned conversations on Chat

Sometimes shoppers begin a conversation on Chat and become inactive after AI Agent has responded.

In these cases, conversations are considered abandoned after 10 minutes of inactivity and the ticket will be automatically closed. This helps keep your inbox organized, and allows your team to focus on conversations that require their attention.

Limitations

AI Agent can respond to shoppers’ questions using knowledge from your Help Center, website or Guidance that you create.

However, at the moment AI Agent cannot perform the following tasks when messaging shoppers on Chat:

We are currently working on improving this experience. Check back later for updates.

FAQs

Do I need to create separate Guidance or tone of voice for AI Agent on Chat?

No, your settings for AI Agent are the same regardless of whether you use AI Agent to respond to questions on email or on Chat. Any new Guidance you create informs how AI Agent responds to tickets on both channels.

For settings like tone of voice, AI Agent continues to speak to customers based on your instructions, but automatically adapts its messages on Chat to be shorter and more concise compared to email.

Should I disable Article Recommendations or auto-replies if I use AI Agent on Chat?

When you enable AI Agent on Chat, Article Recommendations are automatically disabled to create a better experience for shoppers and avoid conflicting messages with AI Agent.

If you’ve r have created custom Rules to automatically reply to messages on Chat (for example, sending “Hey, thanks for your message” when a shopper starts a conversation), you may consider updating these messages or disabling them altogether when AI Agent is enabled on Chat.

Can I customize AI Agent’s initial greeting message?

When a shopper starts a new Chat , AI Agent first responds with the message “👋 Hey” to greet your shopper.

Your tone of voice settings affect how AI Agent speaks to shoppers, but it does not affect the initial greeting message.

If you want to edit the initial greeting to better align with your brand voice, you can edit the default text values found in Chat. Please note, this solution does require some technical skills, like using your browser console and editing code. You’ll want to look for the aiAgentHey key under sspTexts object to edit the value of the initial greeting message.

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