In a helpdesk inbox where Aide drafts instead of sending, a conversation Aide hands to your team can now still come with the reply Aide wrote. Turn on Draft on handoff and, when Aide hands off because it wasn't sure enough to stand behind its reply, your team gets that reply as a draft to review, right above the handoff summary, instead of starting from a blank reply.
How it behaves
- Turning it on: in the inbox settings of a Gorgias, Front or Zendesk connection, under Replies, switch on Draft on handoff, for every inbox (the connection's defaults) or for one inbox. It is off until you turn it on.
- When Aide hands off with a draft: whenever a reply to the customer can still be written: when its reply didn't pass Aide's own review, when rewriting it failed, when your knowledge didn't fully answer the question, when the customer asked for a person, and when a scenario hands the conversation to a person. For a customer who asked for a person, the draft acknowledges the request and answers what it can, as the teammate who sends it. Aide posts one internal note that starts with "Aide drafted this reply, but handed the conversation to your team. Review it before sending:", then the draft, then the usual handoff summary with its sources. The handoff keeps its reason (the customer asked, policy, ...).
- Where the draft goes: wherever the inbox puts Aide's drafts. Front's shared draft and the Aide card's insert-draft macro in Gorgias get the reply alone, without the summary.
- In Aide's conversation view: the conversation shows the same note as the helpdesk: the label, the draft, then the handoff summary. Copilot's draft for the conversation is still the reply alone.
- The handoff itself doesn't change: the conversation is still handed to your team, with the same hand-back tag, assignment and mentions as before.
- When there's no draft: Aide already acted on an order during the turn (its reply can't report how that went), Aide couldn't write a reply at all, AI is paused or the daily AI limit is reached, the topic's AI level is none, or Aide was mentioned in a note. In those cases the handoff note is the same as before. With Draft on handoff off, none of these handoffs carry a draft, as before.
- Inboxes where Aide sends replies: nothing changes. The setting only applies where Aide drafts.
Also in this change
- Drafts read as from your team: a draft your team reviews and sends no longer says "our
team will get back to you", "let me check and get back to you", "I'll pass this to our team"
or "someone will be in touch": the teammate sending it is the team. Where a fact still needs
checking, the draft leaves a
[placeholder]for it or says plainly what is known. Aide's own review sends back a draft that promises a follow-up. - Drafts know the channel: Aide's drafts know whether the customer wrote by email, live chat, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp or SMS, and never tell them to contact you on the channel they're already using ("email us at ..." in an email reply). Contact details for another channel are offered only when they help.
- Drafts over "I don't know": when a sensible reply is possible, a draft is written with placeholders for what your team fills in rather than Aide saying it doesn't have the answer.
- Replies Aide sends on its own are unchanged by these three.
- Drafts answer only what was asked: a draft states only what answers the customer's latest message. It no longer repeats back what the customer said or answers a neighbouring question, and when the answer itself is missing it leads with the blank for it and stays short. Aide's own review sends back a draft with sentences that don't serve the question, even true ones. An article that came up in your knowledge is not a reason to mention its topic: a sizing article stays out of a reply to a shipping question.
- No "I couldn't see your photos": your teammate sees the photos, videos and files the
customer sent, so a draft never says it couldn't see, open or access them, and never asks the
customer to send them again. It leaves a blank such as
[fit assessment from your photos]. - Thank-you messages get a short reply: when the customer only says thanks, that all is well, or goodbye, the reply is two or three sentences: a thank-you back and, when their order is on its way, an invitation to say how it fits. No repeated advice, no order or tracking details, and no handoff. When your knowledge has an article on answering thanks or reviews, Aide follows it. The same goes for a thank-you that also shares news without asking about it (a new order, a return sent back, a refund): Aide acknowledges it in a few words, without repeating the order's details or discount and return terms. A draft that invites the customer to reply in the same conversation ("just reply here if anything changes") is no longer sent back by Aide's review as a contact instruction, so these drafts are no longer handed off over wording. This applies to replies Aide sends too.
- Something you don't offer: when a customer asks for a product, option or combination your knowledge doesn't show (a style in another model's finish, say), Aide never suggests it can be done. It says it isn't offered only when your knowledge says so; otherwise it leaves a blank in a draft, or says it doesn't have that information in a reply it sends. Either way it offers the closest option your knowledge does show, following your agent's instructions on alternatives.
- Order and tracking details only when asked: Aide's review sends back a draft that shows an order or tracking summary the customer's latest message didn't ask about. A message that only tells you about an order (they placed it, sent it back, were refunded) doesn't ask about it.
- A draft Aide's review questions is revised before your team sees it: when Aide's own review flags a draft your team will check, Aide rewrites it once from the review's fixes instead of handing the conversation off straight away, and a handoff carries the rewritten draft. A draft that still doesn't pass after that one rewrite goes to your team as it is, never as a clarifying question to the customer. Aide still hands off at once, without rewriting, when a draft promises more than your policy allows, contradicts an order or payment fact, or covers a topic where Aide may not act. Wording alone (a missing greeting, a phrasing your instructions prefer) no longer hands a draft off. Replies Aide sends on its own are unchanged (since October 16).
- Long drafts are no longer lost: a long reply, one built from several articles, or one about several photos used to be cut off before it was finished, and the conversation went to your team with no draft. Aide now gives a reply room in proportion to what it has to cover (since October 16).
- A refusal is not read as a refund: a draft saying an order "cannot be canceled, refunded, or exchanged" was mistaken for a claim that a refund had happened, and handed off without a draft. It is now read as the refusal it is (since October 16).
- Activity names each note: the integration's Activity used to list every note Aide wrote as "Internal note". It now says what each one is: "Draft reply", "Handoff note", or "Draft and handoff note". Notes written before this change are named from what wrote them, and notes from scenarios show as "Scenario note".
- Readable handoff summaries in Gorgias and Zendesk: Aide's handoff notes used to show the summary as one block of text, with every fact on a single line. They now show bold headings ("Customer wants:", "Needed next:", ...) and the facts as a list, and a note with a draft separates the draft from the summary with a line. Front notes are unchanged.
For developers
- Channel inbox settings (
GET/PATCH /v1/integrations/{id}/inboxes/{inboxId}/settingsand/v1/integrations/{id}/inbox-defaults) have a new booleanhandoffDrafts, defaultfalse, with its source insources.handoffDrafts. Only helpdesk inboxes accept it. - A channel action's
summaryfor an internal note now names the note as above.