Plans and permissions:
- Add-on: AI agents, billed separately
- Change automated knowledge answers settings: Admin role, or a custom role with Email agent set to Can edit email agent settings
Use automated knowledge answers to let the email agent reply to customer emails from your knowledge base, without a person writing the reply. The email agent checks each incoming email, decides whether it can answer it well, and writes a reply grounded in your articles. Depending on your settings, it sends the reply, drafts it for a support team member to review, or keeps it for quality review only.
To open it, go to AI support > Email agent, and select the Automated knowledge answers tab.
How automated knowledge answers work
- Workflows come first: the email agent answers from knowledge only when no active workflow matches the email. Use workflows for your most important or structured cases, and let knowledge answers handle the rest.
- Knowledge: the email agent uses the knowledge its brand can access, which you set in Brand studio. Even when it uses internal sources, it doesn’t share internal-only content with customers.
- Safety checks: every reply goes through safety and quality checks before it’s sent, and replies that fail aren’t sent.
- Review: every reply, sent or not, is available in AI quality > QA review, with what was generated and why it was or wasn’t sent.
How an email gets an automatic reply
- Workflow check: the email goes through workflow selection first. If a workflow matches, it handles the email.
- Eligibility check: if no workflow applies, the email agent checks whether the email is eligible, based on your activation status and case filters.
- Intent check: the email agent decides whether to answer the email or pass on it, as if no automation had run. It skips some emails on purpose, such as ones that are ambiguous or very complex.
- Reply: if it proceeds, it searches your knowledge base and writes a reply based on what it finds.
- Quality checks: the reply goes through safety and quality checks, including your selection criteria. Some checks fix problems and write the reply again, and others mark the reply as not eligible to send.
- Result: a reply that passes every check is sent, or handled as your operation mode says. A reply that fails a check isn’t sent, but you can see it in AI quality > QA review.
In a case’s timeline, a reply that was sent shows as Automated, with the reply and the sources it cited.
A reply that failed a check shows why it was skipped, such as Skipped: safety checks, with the draft that wasn’t sent.
Settings
All of these are on the Automated knowledge answers tab. Select Save changes after you change them.
Activation status
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fully active | Answers all eligible emails. |
| Gradual rollout | Answers the percentage of eligible emails you set in Rollout percentage. |
| Limited rollout | Answers a set number of eligible emails, then stops. To use it, contact our team. |
| Inactive (default) | Doesn’t answer any emails. |
Start with a limited or gradual rollout, and go fully active once you’re confident in the replies.
Operation mode
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Automated (default) | Sends replies to customers once they pass the safety checks. |
| Agent review | Drafts replies for a support team member to review, edit, and approve in Copilot before they’re sent. Workflows have the same mode: see How Agent review works in Copilot. |
| Quality review | Writes replies in the background without sending them. Replies appear in AI quality > QA review only, and customers and your support team don’t see them. |
When you first turn on knowledge answers, use Agent review or Quality review to check the quality of the replies before you send them automatically.
Case filters
Limit which emails get knowledge answers using Zendesk fields, such as tags, brand, channel, or ticket status. Only emails that match all your filters are considered. Filters are optional.
Start with a narrow filter, such as a single topic or channel, and widen it over time.
Custom instructions
In Selection criteria, describe which emails the email agent should or shouldn’t answer, such as “Skip emails about billing disputes or from VIP customers.” These criteria work alongside Assembled’s general safety and relevance checks.
Keep in mind: Selection criteria are checked after a reply is written, not before. The email agent still drafts a reply for emails your criteria exclude, but doesn’t send it. You can see these drafts in AI quality > QA review, which helps you check that your criteria work as intended.