You can create an AI agent for messaging and make it visible on your social channels to start deflecting those commonly asked questions.
This article includes the following topics:
Before you begin
- Connect your social messaging channels (see Add your social channels ). Note that each available social channel has its own enabling instructions. You can add an AI agent for messaging to any social channels that are connected to your Zendesk account.
- Create an AI agent for messaging (see Creating an AI agent for your web and mobile channels ). When you publish the new AI agent, you’ll be able to select the social messaging channel(s) you want to connect the AI agent to.
Adding an AI agent to active social channels
You can add an AI agent you’ve already created to your social channel.
Adding an unpublished AI agent to social channels
If you choose to add an AI agent to a social channel that is currently unpublished, you can publish the AI agent to your social channel.
To publish an unused AI agent to a social channel
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select AI agents and automation > AI agents.
- Click Manage AI agents for messaging.
- Click the AI agent you want to publish.
- Click Publish AI agent.
- In the channel selection screen, select one or more channels to connect to your AI agent, then click Publish AI agent.
Adding a live AI agent to your social channels
If you have published an AI agent to a web or mobile channel and want to now deploy that AI agent to social messaging channels, you can do so in the AI agent’s settings.
To add a live AI agent to a social channel
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select AI agents and automation > AI agents.
- Click Manage AI agents for messaging.
- Click the AI agent you want to use.
- In the Settings tab, expand the Brand and channels section and select the channels you want to connect to the AI agent.
- Click Save.
Removing an AI agent from social channels
You can remove an AI agent from a social messaging channel if you no longer wish to use it.
To remove a live AI agent from a social channel
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select AI agents and automation > AI agents.
- Click Manage AI agents for messaging.
- Click the AI agent you want to use.
- In the Settings tab, expand the Brand and channels section and deselect the channels you want to remove.
- Click Save.
Functionality differences from web and mobile messaging
AI agents for messaging on social channels have the following differences in functionality than compared to native channels:
- Greetings. On social channels, the AI agent is not able to send the greeting message to begin a conversation. The user must speak first, and then the AI agent will follow normal behavior when receiving a free-text message and attempt to find a conversational shortcut.
- Automatic translations. Social messaging channels do not pass the locale, so automatic translation for AI agent messages, text, links, variables, and so on, is not available for a social messaging AI agent.
- (Legacy) Quick reply options experience. For channels like WeChat and X (formerly known
as Twitter), quick reply options aren't supported, and will degrade to a
text-based experience to list the options for the user. The AI agent will say
“You can say” followed by the options configured in bot builder. The AI agent
can't be configured per channel at this stage and will be enabled across all
Zendesk integrated social channels, including Sunshine Conversation
integrations. Note: Quick reply options are currently available on WhatsApp using Sunshine Conversations integrations.
- (Legacy) Data capture. Data capture is not available on social messaging channels. For instance, if an answer includes the Ask for details step requesting information from the customer, the AI agent will skip that answer and move to the next one in the flow.
- (Legacy) Intent characters limitation. The AI agent intent title and the presented options for social media have to fit the limit of 20 characters.
- (Legacy) Authentication and messaging metadata variables. Messaging authentication and messaging metadata variables are only available for the Web Widget and mobile SDK channels.
For a summary of all social channel capabilities, see Sunshine Conversations: Channel capabilities.
38 comments
Kelly
Love this idea! I understand that if this feature is toggled on for 1 brand, then flowbuilder will be available on all social channels, but if you are using multibranding, can some brands use this feature and others not?
Will help center articles be available to be viewed in social media as well?
0
Cheeny Aban
Hi Jordan,
Thank you for raising that up! we appreciate it. I had flagged this article and raise your inquiry to our Team. The article will be updated once further information is available regarding this EAP.
0
Erik
Hi there!

I just got now this Early Access Program but it seems that is not following the same structure of chat bot, the options seems broken and is very hard to our customer understand which option he can choose
As you can see, the option looks great on our website, but on whatsapp is not elegible to use on that way.
Our operation is affecting at this moment and our customer cannot contact us, this is a huge problem!
We need to disable this program right now, this is possible? I'm kindly asking too, if is not possbile to disable that, please do an update on this system to looks like the same chat bot.
1
Dave Dyson
Hi Erik, just a reminder – please leave your feedback on Productboard. Thanks!
0
George Reinoso
Just signed in on the EAP. Waiting to be accepted. Love this option
0
Anton M.
Can you share a tip, how to make bot to react properly to the conversation start?
When we start conversation in a web widget, the bot reacts proactively so users can see icebreakers options straight away.
Yet when using social messaging, the bot does not start by itself, so conversation starts like that:
1. User: Hello!
2. Answer bot: Sorry I do not understand. Please rephrase or
(Start Over)
3. User: Start Over
4. Answer Bot: Please choose your issue (billing) (other)
Is there a way, for the bot to skip to the root tree element (4) when receiving greeting from user or even start proactively in Twitter and other channels, that support it?
5
Dane
As this behavior is happening on an EAP I'll mark this as a feedback. Our options to troubleshoot its functionality is limited right now. Rest assured, our Team will look into it for further improvement.
0
Redwan
same here as Anton M. explained, very weird the bot flow starts even before the actual flow starts which is make it an inconvenient and unpleasant experience for the customers.
0
Paul McCabe
In the article above:
Is this accurate with the EAP? I seem to be able to create multiple different bots within the same brand now (although I have not yet tried to publish more than one).
Thanks!
0
Paul McCabe
Following up on my comment above, I did a quick test, and it seems I was able to create 2 different bots for the same brand, and assign them to unique messaging channels, as shown here.
2
Aya
Totally agree on with what Anton M. explained above. The current flow is very strange. Hope this gets improved very soon!
0
AntonMi
Ahmed Zaid
You can try to use the following string. Though I'm not sure if it'll work in your setup.
1
Kevin Forero
Hola buenas tardes comunidad,
Tengo un problema con mi bot, construí mi bot para dar respuesta por WhatsApp (Cuents verificada) sin embargo cuando lo publicó el bot no funciona y aparte no me llegan los mensajes de WhatsApp a mis citas, ayuda ¿Que estaré haciendo mal? Antes si me había funcionado y de repente dejo de funcionar
0
AntonMi
Kevin Forero Try to open your bot setting and check if it's connected to your WhatsApp channel. If you can't see WhatsApp channel there, make sure that the bot and WA channel are linked to the same brand.
0
Kevin Forero
AntonMi Gracias por responder, si ya verifique y en realidad sólo tengo una Marca, apenas llevo 7 días con Zendesk, igual verifique y todo esta conectado a la misma Marca, y el bot sigue sin funcionar

0
Malak Jawad
Hello
I activated messaging to start using chatbot again but it doesn't work on WhatsApp at all, even I make WhatsApp to be connected channel on the bot but it doesn't work at all, and the worst thing is that when I tested it, the chatbot was not work well and customer keep talking but we did not get tickets to reply back, because of the chatbot was not working well ( no options appears to the customer even if customer want to talk to an agent or any other options) because chatbot is active on WhatsApp we don't receive customer ticket but at the same time chatbot doesn't work or appear options to the customer, so customer keeps talking with himself because we don't receive a ticket to reply back because chatbot is active as well as chatbot doesn't present options to customer , lets say chatbot did not appear answers , why we cant get ticket then to reply it, and because chatbot is active on WhatsApp but doesn't work when I turned it off from WhatsApp, the customer starts able to talk with us again
I see similar cases with other Zendesk users
1
Kevin Forero
Tengo el mismo caso de Malaak Jawad ⚙️ Malak Jawad ¿Existe alguna soluciona para este problema?
0
Zeke
I would like to capture using Bot, Data such as Email and Full name on social channels but it seems no data capture is supported. Is that correct?
2
Raphaël Péguet - Officers.fr
Zeke I didn't Succeeded too.. but I succeeded showing "options buttons" and articles.
@Zendesk is there a date where you think you will be able to show fields to be filled by the customer in social channels please?
Best regards,
Raphaël
0
Sacbe Alfonsina Ibarra E
Can you give me more details on what doesn't work with whatsapp regarding data capture?
Maybe an example of what I wouldn't be able to do?
0
Daniel V
Hello.
We have noticed that the flow does not start if you receive an image or a voice message as the first message from the client.
Many people do not start a conversation flow by writing a text that says "hello" or another text, they directly send an audio or an image. It would be great if the flow would start automatically when faced with these non-text events. Is it possible to have that improvement?
Agurated your comments to know what to respond to my clients.
Regards!
Daniel.
1
Dane
For the limitations of Flow Builder in Social Channels, please refer to Functionality differences from web and mobile messaging.
Hi Daniel,
As of the moment, our bot can only work on with phrases. What you can do is to immediately present options to your customers so that they will have to choose their concern first before they even attach a file. Please refer to the screenshot below.
These are called intents/answers. Please refer to Building a bot using answers.
0
Bala chandar
Need Help in configuring Answer Bot
0
Brett Bowser
Can you confirm what questions you have around setting up Answer Bot?
Thanks in advance!
0
Donald
Hi! I need help from creating bot work flow. I included "ask details" on the flow with three fields needed to be fill up by the end user but upon testing and trying it, the fields are not showing.
It skips the "ask details" and just proceed to the message. Can anyone help me with this?
1
Dane
I'll create a ticket a ticket for you to work on your concern. Please wait for my update via email and let's start from there.
0
Damien Messé
Hello Dane,
We know the limitation of Flow Builder on Social Media especially to capture info such as name, email, booking reference, etc.
This missing feature is preventing us to use Flow Builder on Social Media as we don't want our agents to copypaste this info in Zendesk while it could be done automatically by the Bot.
Do you have any visibility on when the capture feature will be available on Social Media channels ?
Thanks
1
Benjamin
Hello Dane,
Same problem happened to me too the "Ask for Details" doesn't work on Social Channel.
Can you help me on this one ?
Thank you.
0
Arianne Batiles
Hi Benjamin,
Data capture is still not available for social messaging channels at the moment. This includes any action that will ask the customer to input some details. Hence, both the 'Ask for details" and "Transfer to agent" step won't work on these channels.
0
Arianne Batiles
Hi Damien Messé,
No ETA yet for this feature but this is definitely on the roadmap.
0