Get Started With AI Answers

Say hello to a smarter, faster way to delight your customers: an AI-powered agent in Help Scout! Whether you’re managing a busy support queue or striving to create a seamless customer experience, AI Answers is here to revolutionize the way you work.

Powered by OpenAI, this feature uses your Docs knowledge base to provide instant, accurate responses to common questions from your Beacon, freeing up valuable time for the human touch where it matters most. Ready to see how AI can transform your support workflow?

AI answers is available to all plans to try out, and is available to all paid plans after that trial.

Before You Get Started

You’ll need sources where the AI will get its information and a Beacon to get started with AI Answers.

Configure an AI Agent With Knowledge

You'll need an AI Agent to start. Head to Manage > AI Agents to configure your AI Agent. Check out AI Agents in Help Scout for more information and help with agents.

AI Answers gets all of its information to help your visitors from the knowledge sources you add to the agent. Add your Help Scout Docs sites and other publicly available sites and documents.

The agent also will control how AI Answers speaks with your visitors — set the voice, brand, and other directives on the agent.

ℹ️ Having a solid foundation of information in your Docs and/or other sources is the most important step to success.

Head over to Get Started With Docs for help with getting your Docs site up and running.
To use Docs articles that only appear in your Beacon and AI answers without publishing a Docs website, check out Control Access to Docs With Beacon for help.

Beacon

You’ll need at least one Beacon with Docs enabled and you’ll need to have that Beacon embedded in your web-based app or website, or have the Beacon that's built into Docs enabled.

Check out Create a New Beacon if you need help creating a one, and Add Beacon to Your Website or App for more help with installing your new Beacon. For more on the Beacon built into Docs, see Manage Docs Contact With Beacon.

Note: AI Answers is not yet available for Beacon installed in your mobile apps using the SDK.

Enable AI Answers in Beacon

Head to Manage > Beacons. Select the Docs-enabled Beacon you want to use, then Edit Beacon. Choose AI Answers from the left navigation menu, then toggle Enable AI Answers to on.

Set Your Beacon Mode

Click in to the Docs settings in the left navigation menu for your Beacon to find the modes. There are two options for your Beacon mode when AI Answers is enabled:

Self Service — visitors will have to interact with AI Answers first to get other options
Neutral — visitors will see AI Answers and the other options available, like Email, Chat, or Docs.

That's it — AI Answers is now available to your Beacon visitors! ✨

More Help and Information

Click over to your AI Agent to make further changes to the sources and identity that AI Answers uses. See AI Agents in Help Scout for more on the agent settings.

Now that you're all ready to go, check out Manage AI Answers for how to manage all of these settings, view sessions, and report on the activity.

Head over to Improve AI Answers for more on helping the AI learn to answer questions even better.

Check out the Help Scout AI Transparency Hub for questions about our AI policies.