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Human handoff transfers a live conversation from the AI to a human agent. It happens automatically when the AI decides it cannot resolve the issue, or when the customer explicitly asks for a human. For the full list of configurable behaviors, see Handoff Settings.

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When handoff happens

By default, handoff is triggered in any of these situations:

Explicit request

The customer asks to speak with a human agent.

AI decision

The AI determines it cannot properly resolve the situation.

Frustration

The customer shows signs of frustration during the conversation.

Forbidden topic

The conversation touches a topic configured for mandatory handoff.
Each of these triggers can be tuned or disabled individually. See Handoff Settings.

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Handoff across channels

Handoff works the same way conceptually on every channel — the AI stops responding, a human takes over, and the full conversation history is preserved. The surface differs per channel.

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Web chat

  • AI stops responding in the same thread.
  • A human agent takes over from the inbox.
  • Full history is preserved for the agent and the customer.
The widget keeps human replies in the same session. There is no onHandoff widget option. Headless integrations can observe session state with useSessions; hooks.onMessageReceived reports newly delivered messages and is not an immediate handoff event. See widget session behavior.

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Phone calls

  • The AI transfers the call to a fallback phone number configured on the phone agent itself.
  • Call history and context (including the AI-generated summary) are preserved on the session.
Phone uses a per-agent handoff configuration rather than the org-wide Handoff Settings. The transfer switches, office hours, and data collection toggles on that page apply to text-based channels (web, email, WhatsApp, SMS, Slack) — not voice calls.

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Email

  • The AI assigns complex threads to a human agent.
  • A conversation summary and the full thread context are attached.

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Slack

  • The AI posts the conversation into your designated Slack support channel.
  • Your team replies from Slack and the customer receives the response on their original channel.

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WhatsApp

  • The AI stops responding in the same WhatsApp thread.
  • A human agent continues the conversation. No additional setup required.

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SMS

  • The AI stops responding on the same phone number.
  • A human agent takes over the thread seamlessly.

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Next steps

Handoff Settings

Configure transfer behavior, office hours, data collection, and more.

Forbidden topics

Define topics that always trigger a human handoff.