Auto assist, which is part of agent copilot, is an AI-powered assistant for your agents. Using large language model (LLM) technology, auto assist understands the contents of submitted tickets and makes suggestions to your agents on how to solve them.
With auto assist, agents spend less time on repetitive tickets, solve tickets in a more consistent way, and ultimately close more tickets.
This article contains the following topics:
- About auto assist
- Turning on and configuring auto assist
- Next steps: Creating auto assist procedures and actions
Related articles:
About auto assist
Auto assist makes suggestions to your agents based on procedures that are defined by your admins. These suggestions can be replies that the agent should send to the customer, or actions that the agent should take.
When using auto assist, agents don’t have to compose replies or execute actions themselves. Instead, agents review and approve the replies or actions suggested by auto assist.
Auto assist suggestions appear in tickets in the Agent Workspace interface in place of the composer. Suggestions are made in response to end-user comments only, not agent comments.
Auto assist can suggest replies on any topic that an admin has created a procedure for. A procedure is a set of written instructions that describes how a given customer problem should be solved. You can think of defining procedures as similar to explaining to a new agent how a specific problem should be solved within your company.
Auto assist uses this procedure content, along with its built-in LLM training, to generate suggested replies or actions, which it then presents to agents as they work on tickets in the Agent Workspace. Any replies or actions suggested by auto assist require an agent’s approval before being sent to the customer or performed, and are sent or performed under the agent’s name. The customer isn’t aware of auto assist during their interactions with the human agent.
Auto assist is optimized for use with conversation bots, but it can also be used for email replies.
Examples of procedures where auto assist can suggest replies include:
- Advising the customer on buying a product or service sold by your company
- Explaining a business policy to the customer
- Helping the customer troubleshoot a problem with a product
Examples of procedures where auto assist can suggest replies and actions include:
- Checking the status of a current order in Shopify, or canceling and refunding specific items or whole orders in Shopify
- Querying and modifying your own internal business systems or performing third-party actions via API
Auto assist works in any language supported by OpenAI.
Requirements for using auto assist
To use auto assist, you must meet the following requirements:
- Have the Advanced AI add-on.
- Be migrated to the improved messaging backend. Most Zendesk accounts have already been migrated. To see if your account has been migrated, open Admin Center and search for the Messaging triggers page. If you see this page, your account has been migrated. If you don’t see this page, your account has not yet been migrated but will be in the future.
Turning on and configuring auto assist
Before auto assist can help guide agents in solving tickets, an admin must turn it on, specify which agents can see auto assist suggestions, and configure which channels auto assist works with.
To configure which channels auto assist works with, you use tags. There are two ways to approach this configuration:
- For messaging channels only: Admins can add the agent_copilot_enabled tag to answers used by your conversation bot. When a customer is transferred to an agent and a messaging ticket is created, the tag is added to the ticket and auto assist steps in to help the agent.
- For messaging or email channels: Admins can create ticket triggers that add the agent_copilot_enabled tag to tickets based on certain conditions. Whenever a ticket is created that meets the conditions you specify in the trigger, auto assist steps in to help the agent.
You can use either or both of the above methods, depending on the configuration that’s most appropriate for your needs.
This section contains the following topics:
Turning on and configuring access to auto assist
Admins turn on and configure access to auto assist in Admin Center. The exact setting location depends on when you purchased the Advanced AI add-on.
(If you purchased Advanced AI on October 9, 2024 or later, or have already migrated to agent copilot) To turn on and configure access to auto assist)
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Agent
copilot. - Select Show auto assist replies and actions in the agent
composer.
- In the Who has access field, search for and select the groups that should be able to use the suggested replies feature. By default, all groups have access.
- Click Save.
(If you purchased Advanced AI before October 9, 2024 and haven’t migrated to agent copilot) To turn on and configure access to auto assist
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Generative AI.
- Select Agent copilot.
- In the field below the setting, enter the agents who should be able to see suggestions from auto assist. If an agent isn’t listed here, they won’t see auto assist suggestions in the Agent Workspace.
- Click Save.
Configuring auto assist on messaging channels using tags on answers
For messaging, admins can select which conversation bots should work with auto assist. The bot will hand off a conversation to auto assist when the customer requests to speak to an agent. From the customer’s point of view, they are still transferred to a human agent because auto assist answers are reviewed by the agent and sent under their name.
To connect a conversation bot with auto assist
- In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select AI agents and automation > AI
agents. - Click Manage conversation bots.
- Select the conversation bot you want to turn on agent copilot for.
- On the Answers tab, select an existing answer that includes the Transfer to agent step type.
- In bot builder, select the Transfer step.
- In the Tags field in the panel on the right, enter
agent_copilot_enabled.
- (Optional) Add another tag to identify which procedure you’ve created for auto assist to follow in this situation (for example, copilot_order_cancellation). Later, you can create an Explore report that uses this tag to identify tickets where a specific procedure was followed on a ticket.
- If possible, update the Bot message field to reiterate what issue the customer needs help with. For example, “Let me connect you with a customer support agent to help with canceling your order.” This helps auto assist identify the right procedure to use when assisting the agent.
- Click Done.
- Click Publish bot.
Configuring auto assist on messaging or email channels using tags added by ticket triggers
Admins can also configure which channels auto assist works with by using ticket triggers. This configuration method works by setting the agent_copilot_enabled tag on tickets based on specified conditions.
For example, you could create a trigger that adds the auto assist tag to tickets that have a specific intent predicted by intelligent triage. Assuming you create a procedure that describes how agents should solve issues related to that intent, auto assist will be able to guide the agent in solving the customer’s issue.
To create a trigger that adds the auto assist tag to tickets
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules >
Triggers. - Click Add trigger.
- In Trigger name, enter a descriptive name for your trigger.
- (Optional) Enter a Description for your trigger.
- (Optional) Select a Category for your trigger.
- In the Conditions pane, under Meet ALL of the following
conditions, add the following conditions:
- Ticket status | Is | New
-
Tags | Contains none of the following |
agent_copilot_enabled
This condition ensures that your trigger will run only once on each ticket. The trigger will add the tag the first time it runs, and after that, the presence of the tag prevents the trigger from running again.
- Under Meet ANY of the following conditions, add the following
conditions:
- (Optional) Channel | Is | <select the channel you
want the trigger to work on>
Repeat the condition above for additional channels. These conditions ensure that auto assist works only on tickets created through certain channels. For example, you might not want auto assist to apply to email tickets.
- (Optional) Intent | Is | <select an intent you have
created a procedure for>
Repeat the condition above for additional intents. You don’t need to create separate triggers for each intent. Auto assist will be able to tell which procedure to use based on the contents of the customer’s request as well as the procedure title. Alternatively, add other conditions that fit your organization’s workflows.
- (Optional) Channel | Is | <select the channel you
want the trigger to work on>
- In the Actions pane, add the following action:
- Add tags | agent_copilot_enabled
- (Optional) Add another tag to identify which procedure you’ve created for auto assist to follow in this situation (for example, copilot_order_cancellation). Later, you can create an Explore report that uses this tag to identify tickets where a specific procedure was followed on a ticket.
- Click Create.
For more help with triggers, see Creating ticket triggers for automatic ticket updates and notifications.
Next steps: Creating auto assist procedures and actions
Before auto assist is fully functional for your agents, you need to create procedures and actions that tell auto assist how to properly guide agents in solving tickets. See the following articles for instructions: