What this screen does
The AI answering email tickets screen is where you configure how Rep AI handles your incoming email support tickets — when it replies, what it sounds like, what it must never touch, and how it identifies itself to your customers. Everything that controls your email AI lives on this one page.
The screen subtitle says it plainly: "Reduce support workload by letting AI automatically respond to incoming email tickets."
Saving your changes
A Save Changes button sits at the top right of the page. Any setting you adjust on the screen stays unsaved until you click it, so you can change multiple things together and apply them in one action.
Status banner
A banner at the top of the page reflects the current state of your AI email answering, based on your Omnichannel AI plan and usage:
During the free introductory period — "Free period ending soon" warns that AI Email Answering will require an Omnichannel AI subscription after the cutoff date.
Drafting only — "AI is creating draft responses for you. Subscribe to Omnichannel AI to send them automatically and save even more time."
Auto-send enabled — "AI is automatically sending responses using your Omnichannel AI ticket package."
Tickets exhausted — Your package ran out; AI has fallen back to drafting until you upgrade or renew. A CTA lets you re-enable automatic sending.
For details on packages, tickets, and how billing works, see the Omnichannel AI article.
After crafting an answer
A dropdown that decides what the AI does with each reply it writes:
Send answer immediately — the AI sends the reply to your customer automatically. Each resolved conversation consumes one ticket from your Omnichannel AI package.
Save as draft — the AI writes the reply but leaves it as a draft in your helpdesk for a human to review and send. Drafts do not consume tickets.
Draft mode is the safest way to evaluate AI quality before letting it send autonomously. You can flip back to Send answer immediately at any time.
Identify as an AI agent
A checkbox that controls whether the AI's replies disclose that they were written by AI. Leave it checked if you want transparency with your customers; uncheck it if you prefer the AI to reply silently as part of your team.
The agent (user) the AI would answer on their behalf
A dropdown listing the agents in your helpdesk. The selected user is the one whose name and email signature the AI uses when it replies. Pick a real teammate or a generic support agent — whichever fits your brand.
Use specific AI instructions for emails
A toggle that controls whether email replies follow a dedicated set of instructions instead of your general AI instructions. When turned on, your Email AI Instructions apply to email responses only — everything you've already configured for chat and other channels stays untouched.
Email AI Instructions editor
A rich-text editor where you tell the AI how to write its email replies. You can use bold, underline, links, lists, and more to structure your guidance.
Inside this section you'll find:
Generate for me — produces a starter set of instructions for you, so you don't have to write from a blank page.
Polish prompt — rewrites your instructions to be clearer and more effective without changing their meaning.
Expand (↗ icon) — opens the editor in a larger view for longer instruction sets.
Character counter — shows how much room you've used (up to 200 characters per instruction segment).
Helpful examples of what to write here:
"Use a professional tone, avoid emojis."
"When AI cannot answer an email, send a courteous acknowledgment instead of staying silent."
"Always reply in the language of the original email."
Send acknowledgment messages
A toggle that tells the AI to reply with a friendly acknowledgment whenever it can't fully answer (missing information, unsupported request, etc.) — so the customer never gets ghosted. These acknowledgments respect everything else you've set on this screen: your tone instructions, your agent identity, your AI Instructions.
Use macros for consistent email responses
A toggle that tells the AI to use your helpdesk macros as reference material when drafting replies. The AI doesn't paste macros verbatim — it uses them as guidance to keep its phrasing aligned with the brand voice your team already uses.
Do Not Answer Rules
A toggle that opens a list of email categories the AI must never reply to. Use this to block sensitive topics — legal escalations, refund disputes, anything you want a human to handle every time. When the AI sees a matching email, it skips it entirely and leaves it for your team.
Answer all tickets
A toggle that decides which tickets the AI is allowed to touch:
Off — the AI answers only tickets that came in by email.
On — the AI also answers tickets your helpdesk created from chat-widget conversations (for example, contact-form submissions that escalated).
Turn this on if your helpdesk is your single source of truth for all support tickets and you want the AI to help across the board.
Stopping the AI on a specific thread
A note at the bottom of the page explains: to stop the AI from answering one particular conversation thread, tag the conversation with the word "Human" in your helpdesk. Once that tag is on the thread, the AI hands the conversation off and stays out of it.
Email Answering Analytics
A card at the bottom of the screen with a View analytics link. Opens the analytics view where you can see how the AI has been performing on email tickets — how many it deflected, what it drafted vs. sent, and how that maps to support workload saved.
Putting it all together — a typical first-time setup
Pick the agent the AI will answer as.
Decide whether to Identify as an AI agent or stay anonymous.
Start in Save as draft mode while you tune behavior.
Turn on Use specific AI instructions for emails and click Generate for me to seed a draft. Tweak the wording with Polish prompt.
Decide whether to enable Send acknowledgment messages and Use macros.
If you have topics the AI must never touch, enable Do Not Answer Rules and add them.
Click Save Changes.
Review a few drafted responses in your helpdesk. When you're happy with the quality, switch After crafting an answer to Send answer immediately.
Common questions
Do I need an Omnichannel AI subscription to use this screen?
You can configure and use AI Email Answering during the free introductory period without a subscription. After the cutoff, you need an Omnichannel AI ticket package for AI to send replies automatically. Without one, the AI keeps reading and drafting — it just doesn't send.
What's the difference between "Identify as an AI agent" and the agent dropdown below it?
The dropdown picks who the AI signs replies as (which user's name and signature appear on outgoing email). The checkbox decides whether to disclose that the reply was written by AI. They work independently — you can sign as a real teammate but still disclose AI authorship, or vice versa.
Will Email AI Instructions change how the AI replies in chat?
No. When Use specific AI instructions for emails is on, those instructions apply only to email replies. Your chat-widget AI keeps following your general AI instructions.
How do I stop the AI from replying to one specific email thread?
Tag the conversation in your helpdesk with the word "Human". The AI will recognize the tag and back off that thread.
Where do I see results?
Click View analytics at the bottom of the screen to see deflection performance for email tickets.