The AI Objective Step enables businesses to engage instantly with customers by providing quick replies to low-effort inquiries—such as basic product details, company policies, or simple troubleshooting steps. By handling these routine interactions, the AI Objective Step frees up human teams to focus on more complex issues. It also scales automatically to meet growing conversation volumes.
24/7 Support: The AI Objective Step runs continuously, so customers receive instant answers regardless of time zones or business hours—reducing wait times and boosting satisfaction.
Scalable Conversations: AI Objective can manage many simultaneous chats, ensuring your business can grow without adding support staff.
Consistent, Accurate Responses: Because AI Objective pulls replies from your approved Knowledge Sources, every customer sees the same reliable information, minimizing errors.
Reduced Workload: Automating routine tasks lets human agents concentrate on complex or high-value inquiries, improving overall efficiency.
To use the Assignment: AI Objective workflow template:
Navigate to Workflows → click + Add Workflow → select Assignment: AI Objective → click Use Template.
You’ll see two predefined steps:
Trigger – starts when a Contact opens a conversation.
AI Objective – automatically hands the chat over to the AI Objective step.
When the AI Objective Step is triggered, the system evaluates your Knowledge Sources and chosen Objective type to guide the conversation:
Objective Type
Answer Questions: AI Objective uses uploaded documents (PDFs, URLs, or Snippets) to directly answer incoming queries. Ideal for FAQs or straightforward support.
Collect Information: AI Objective asks the Contact targeted questions, saves responses as variables (e.g., email, phone number), and can push that data to contact fields or third-party apps. Perfect for lead qualification or data collection.
Knowledge Sources
These are the documents or Snippets you’ve provided (Workspace Settings → AI Assist → Manage Knowledge Sources). AI Objective relies on them for factual answers in Answer Questions mode.
If Reply Outside Knowledge Sources is enabled, AI Objective falls back to use general knowledge if it can't find an answer from your uploaded knowledge sources.
Advanced Settings
Add Contact Idle Branch: If a Contact doesn't reply for the configured timeout (15 minutes by default), AI Objective ends the chat automatically.
Contact Asks To Speak To A Human: If the Contact types something like “I want a human,” the workflow routes to a human support branch.
Failure: AI Unable To Answer (only for Answer Questions): If AI Objective cannot answer from your Knowledge Sources, it moves to a “cannot answer” branch.
Splitting large documents into focused Knowledge Sources (e.g., “Product A FAQ” instead of a single, large file) helps AI Objective find answers faster.
Trigger
The workflow begins when a Contact sends any message or opens a new conversation.
AI Objective
This step hands off to AI Objective, which runs according to the Objective Type you configured:
Answer Questions: AI Objective picks the best matching information from your Knowledge Sources and replies.
Collect Information: AI Objective asks a series of questions until all required variables are captured.
Before concluding, the workflow sends a final note like, “Thank you—feel free to message again anytime.”
Conversation Outcome Branches
After AI Objective finishes, one of three branches runs:
Close Conversation (Success): AI Objective answered all questions or collected all variables; the chat ends.
Failure: Assign to Human: If AI Objective can’t handle a query (no match in Knowledge Sources) or a technical error occurs, a “We’re routing you to a human” message triggers, and the workflow passes the chat to a human agent.
Failure: Idle: If the Contact is inactive beyond the timeout, a “We’re closing this chat for now—reach out anytime” message ends the conversation.
Keep Knowledge Sources Focused: Upload topic-specific files rather than a single, large file that contains extensive information. This speeds up matching and improves accuracy.
Test Both Objectives: Run sample conversations in both Answer Questions and Collect Information modes to ensure your Knowledge Sources and variable prompts work as intended.
Refine Your AI Persona: Craft a concise persona description (tone, role, expertise) so AI Objective’s replies align with your brand voice. For example, “A friendly support assistant that gives clear, step-by-step answers.”
Monitor Idle & Failure Branches: If many chats end in the Failure: AI Unable To Answer branch, add more relevant content to your Knowledge Sources or enable “Reply Outside Knowledge Sources” for fallback.
Update Variables Carefully: When using Collect Information, if you rename a variable (e.g., $customer_email), update any later workflow steps that reference it.
Related articles 👩💻
