Live chat and handoff
AI-to-human handoff
A rep can move an active AI conversation to human handling without starting over. The dashboard offers immediate takeover or an invitation that waits for the visitor to accept.
- Availability
- All plans
- Configured in
- Dashboard → Chats → AI conversations → open conversation → Takeover now or Offer to join
- Category
- Live chat and handoff
- Reference status
- Current
Before you begin
Plan availability: All plans.
Prerequisite: An active AI-handled conversation and an authenticated rep who can participate.
Key boundary: Offer to join does not transfer control until the visitor accepts. Takeover now transfers control immediately; the dashboard then shows the human reply composer.
Two dashboard handoff controls
| Method | Consent | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Takeover now | No additional visitor confirmation. | The rep becomes the active human responder immediately and the visitor sees a handoff event and human identity. |
| Offer to join | Required. | Stand sends a visitor-facing invitation. The AI remains active until the visitor accepts; rejection or no response does not silently transfer control. |
What remains continuous
- The same session and transcript continue; the visitor does not repeat the question in a new window.
- The rep can read prior visitor messages, AI replies, cards, captured contacts, and labels before responding.
- The visitor-facing header and system card change to identify the human participant rather than presenting later replies as AI.
- The completed conversation retains both the AI and human portions in History.
Consent-based offer flow
Offer to join is for situations where a rep sees an opportunity to help but the AI conversation is still progressing normally. Stand adds an invitation to the visitor transcript and waits for the visitor’s explicit choice.
Acceptance changes the assignment and notifies the dashboard so the rep can continue. Until acceptance, the offer is not equivalent to a reserved human conversation and the AI remains the responder.
Availability and capacity effects
- Human takeover participates in the rep’s live-chat workload and capacity handling.
- The rep does not need to have been the original responder because the conversation began with a Stand-in.
- A handoff is distinct from new-chat routing: it changes an existing session rather than consuming another organization chat.
- Disabling a Stand-in after the conversation began does not erase the transcript needed for takeover.
Limits and boundaries
- The AI monitoring view shows handoff controls, not a reply composer. Typing indicators do not transfer control; an authenticated rep message sent through the session API can trigger takeover when AI is still active.
- Takeover does not authenticate the visitor or grant permission to disclose account information.
- Offer to join should not be described as accepted until the visitor’s response changes the session state.
- Starting a separate chat is unnecessary and would lose the value of the existing context.