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Set up and use AI Agent on Chat (Beta)Updated 11 days ago

Beta feature: please note that AI Agent on Chat is currently only available to a limited group of Automate subscribers as part of a Closed Beta program. Stay tuned for updates.


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 or website, create Guidance and enable Actions

    • Onboarding equips AI Agent with the information to answer questions about your brand and products, and automate tasks in 3rd-party apps.

Connecting AI Agent to a Chat

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

  1. Go to Automate
  2. Select your store from sidebar, then click on AI Agent
  3. In the Configuration 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 Enable AI Agent at the top of the page to go live. This will turn on AI Agent. 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. 


In your Automate settings for AI Agent, opening the dropdown menu under Chat settings to select one or more Chats where you want AI Agent to respond to customers

How AI Agent responds to messages on Chat

Once AI Agent has been enabled on Chat, it automatically begins to respond to customer questions using knowledge from your connected Help Center, website and Guidance.

When sending messages on Chat, AI Agent has 2 key behaviors:

  • Tone of voice: AI Agent continues to use your tone of voice settings when speaking with customers on Chat, but adapts its messages to be quicker and more concise compared to email.

    A conversation in a Chat widget between AI Agent and a shopper. AI provides an answer to the shopper's question in a short, concise format, receiving a positive response to close the ticket.
  • Handovers: AI Agent automatically hands over tickets to your human agents whenever it lacks confidence in an answer, encounters a listed handover topic, or does not find any relevant knowledge to answer a question.

The handover experience 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.

Depending on your Live Chat settings, AI Agent will handover tickets to your team in different ways. Your Live Chat settings determine when shoppers are allowed to send live messages to your team.

  • If a handover is required and Live Chat is set to When Agents are online OR Always live during business hours:

    • AI Agent sends a message saying that it will connect the shopper with someone from your team

      • If Email Capture is enabled as Optional → AI Agent gives shoppers the option to enter their email address to receive a response from your team later. If they choose, the shopper may ignore the email capture and continue to message in Chat in order to receive an immediate response from your team.

        A conversation in a Chat widget between AI Agent and a shopper. AI Agent is not able to answer, so it has sent a message indicating that it will connect the shopper with a human agent. AI Agent has given the shopper an option to enter their email to continue the conversation offline.
      • If Email Capture is enabled as Required → AI Agent asks the shopper to enter their email address to receive a response from your team later. The shopper may only continue to message in Chat after their email has been submitted.

      • If Email Capture is Off → AI Agent does not ask for the shopper’s email. It proceeds to connect the shopper with someone from your team.

Tip: Email Capture helps you to identify shoppers who start a conversation on Chat. If a shopper already has a customer profile, your agents will be able to see their profile in the ticket view, including information like order history, in order to better assist with their questions.


  • If a handover is required and Live Chat is set to Offline --> because no human agents are available to receive a handover when Chat is offline, AI Agent asks the shopper for their email so your team can follow-up later

  • If AI Agent encounters a bug or something unexpected happens, it will automatically handover the Chat ticket to your team.

How your team receives handover tickets

Whenever AI Agent hands over a ticket, your team can find it in the handover section of the ✨ AI Agent ticket View in their shared inbox.

If you’ve set up auto-assignment Rules to route Chat tickets to a specific team, handover tickets from AI Agent will be automatically assigned to an available agent.

Learn more about AI Agent ticket Views.

In the sidebar of Gorgias, looking at the ticket Views that you can use to see how AI Agent is handling tickets

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

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 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.

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