AI escalation and handoff behavior
Your configured AI handoff behavior controls when the AI assistant offers users a route to your support team. This setting is available separately for the help center and the widget, so you can tailor the experience for each channel.
How it works
When a user interacts with the AI assistant, it answers questions using your published knowledge base. If the user needs more help, the AI can offer a contact option based on your handoff settings. Because the assistant offers the route, handoff works only on channels where AI answers are enabled. The three options are:
AI decides: The assistant determines when to show the contact option based on the conversation context
Always visible: The contact option is available at all times
Off: The assistant never offers a route to your team
Widget behavior
In the embedded widget, the AI handoff behavior setting is in Help Center > Widget > Customize.
When set to AI decides, the contact option appears in two situations:
The AI cannot find sufficient information in your knowledge base and skips directly to offering contact
The user gives negative feedback (thumbs down) on an AI response
When set to Always visible, the contact option is always shown in the widget chat.
When set to Off, the contact option never appears, regardless of whether a contact method is configured.
Help center behavior
In the help center, the AI handoff behavior setting is in Help Center > Customize > Contact.
The same three options apply. When set to AI decides or Always visible, the AI panel can offer a route to the native contact panel after negative feedback. When set to Off, the panel prompts the user to continue searching the knowledge base instead.
Draft a handoff summary
Enable Draft a handoff summary to have the AI generate a summary of the conversation before routing the user to your team. This lets the AI draft a message in your configured contact provider so that the user doesn't have to type their request from scratch.
When your contact method is a chat platform integration (Crisp, Intercom, Zendesk, or another supported platform), the handoff opens that platform's chat window with the drafted summary, and the conversation arrives like any other inbound chat there, so your team's AI assistant or agents pick it up normally.
To test the full loop with AI decides, ask the assistant a question it can't answer, then accept the offered handoff. Your chat platform opens with the drafted summary.