Choosing "Talk to a person" in the chat widget now hands the conversation to your team straight away, without the AI answering first. And when a shopper asks whether they're talking to a person or a bot, Aide answers with a fixed, truthful line that no setting or instruction can change.
How it behaves
- "Talk to a person" in the widget's menu: the shopper's request is posted in the conversation they have open (or a new one) and the conversation goes to your team at once, with the handoff message from your Handoff settings. Aide doesn't write a reply first, so nothing is counted as an AI reply.
- A shopper who types it: a short message that only asks for a person ("human", "agent please", "can I speak to someone?", "parler à un conseiller", "quiero hablar con una persona", "ich möchte mit einem Mitarbeiter sprechen") hands off the same way, in English, French, Spanish and German. Longer messages still go to Aide, which hands off when it reads a request for a person, as before.
- Already with your team: asking again changes nothing; the conversation stays where it is.
- Outside business hours or nobody online: it still hands off, and the shopper sees your outside-hours message, so they know when to expect an answer.
- Email ask and details: if your widget asks for an email before a handoff, or your agent collects details, the shopper is asked for them in the chat after the handoff, as with any other handoff.
- "Am I talking to a bot?": in English, Aide answers "I'm {your agent's name}, an AI agent for {your store}. I can bring in a person from our team any time you like." and then answers the rest of the message. In other languages, Aide says the same thing in its own words until the fixed wording for that language has been reviewed. This also applies to email replies, where the line goes under the greeting.
- Never claims to be a person: a reply that says Aide is a person or a human is rejected and rewritten, whatever the agent's name, instructions or disclosure setting say.
- Your wording: the menu item's text can be changed in the widget's Language settings, under Menu.
For developers
- Widget SDK: new command
Aide('handoff')opens the widget and asks for a person on the open conversation, or a new one. Use it for your own "Contact us" buttons. New label keymenu.talkToPerson. POST /widget/conversationsandPOST /widget/conversations/{id}/messagesaccepthandoff: true, which hands the conversation off without an AI turn.