AI Stand-ins
Stand-in specialization
Stand-in specialization limits a Stand-in to one Site and, optionally, one path scope within that Site. For each member’s eligible Stand-ins, routing prefers matching path coverage over Site-wide coverage, then Site-wide coverage over a general Stand-in.
- Availability
- All plans
- Configured in
- Dashboard → Stand-ins → select a Stand-in → Edit → Identity → Specialization
- Category
- AI Stand-ins
- Reference status
- Current
Before you begin
Plan availability: All plans.
Prerequisite: An existing Site in the organization; the Site must be enabled and installed before it can receive public chats.
Key boundary: Specialization controls eligibility, not authorization or page security. Matching uses the visitor URL path and does not inspect page content to decide scope.
Choose the coverage scope
| Configuration | Pages the Stand-in can cover |
|---|---|
| No specialized Site | A general Stand-in can cover otherwise eligible Sites in the same organization. The owner’s I chat here choices control human coverage, not Stand-in specialization. |
| Site with no path | Every matched path on that specific Site. |
/ | Only the Site’s root page. |
Exact path such as /pricing | That path, treating a trailing slash as equivalent, but not its child pages. |
Trailing wildcard such as /docs/* | The named path and its descendant paths, such as /docs/install. |
Configure specialization
- Open the Stand-in, choose Edit, then use Identity to select the Site it should specialize in.
- Leave the path empty for Site-wide coverage or enter a supported root, exact, or trailing-wildcard pattern.
- Save the Stand-in. Routing uses saved specialization; an unsaved editor choice has no public effect.
- Enable the Stand-in only after its identity, instructions, skills, knowledge, and coverage are ready for visitors.
How specialization affects routing
Stand first removes Stand-ins that are disabled, belong to the wrong organization, have an unavailable owner relationship, or do not match the installed Site. It then compares the saved coverage of the remaining Stand-ins.
- Stand compares specialization separately for each owning member: matching path coverage, then Site-wide coverage, then general coverage. A specialist displaces that member’s broader Stand-ins, not every other member’s Stand-ins.
- Every nonblank matching path has the same specialization level. An exact /docs/install rule and a matching /docs/* rule can therefore tie; a longer path does not win automatically.
- Each member with eligible Stand-ins receives an equal share of AI traffic; that share is split equally among their remaining Stand-ins. A different member’s general Stand-in can still share traffic with a specialist.
- Chat widget status is a Site-level diagnostic that does not evaluate one visitor path. Test the intended page in a new conversation to check path-specific routing.
- If no enabled Stand-in matches, Stand can still route to an eligible human rep. The absence of an AI match does not create broader Stand-in coverage.
Path-matching rules
- Matching uses the URL path. Query strings and hash fragments do not create a different specialization scope.
- An exact path does not include descendants; use a trailing
/*when a subtree should be covered. - A root-only
/pattern is different from leaving the path empty for the whole Site. - The Site itself still performs domain matching. A matching path on the wrong Site is not eligible.
Availability and boundaries
- Stand-in specialization is available on every plan.
- The selected Site must belong to the same organization and be available in the Stand-in editor.
- Public routing additionally requires the Site to be enabled, installed, and matched and the Stand-in to be enabled.
- Specialization does not change behavior-rule greetings or reveal triggers; those are Site-level chat behavior.
- Changing specialization affects future routing and does not move an active conversation to another Stand-in.