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Assist Mode lets OpenCX help your human agents without taking over the conversation. The AI reads the thread, drafts a suggested reply, and posts it as an internal note. The customer sees nothing until your rep copies, edits, and sends.
Assist Mode does not reply to the customer. It only posts internal notes visible to your team. Your reps stay in full control of every customer-facing message.

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When Assist runs

1

Conversation is assigned to a human agent

Assist only runs on conversations that are not assigned to the AI admin. If the AI admin owns the conversation, the AI responds directly instead.
2

Autopilot assist is enabled

Assist must be enabled for the channel in your Autopilot settings. The setting is per-channel — you can enable it for web but not email, or vice versa.
3

Customer sends a message

When a customer message arrives on a qualifying conversation, OpenCX reads the full thread and drafts a reply.
4

Draft posted as internal note

The suggestion appears as an internal note in the Intercom conversation. The conversation is tagged opencx_ai_assisted.

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What the suggestion looks like

Your rep sees an internal note from the AI admin account containing:
  • A draft reply the rep can copy and edit before sending.
  • Optionally, a citation link back to the OpenCX session showing the AI’s source articles (when Send citations as note is enabled in settings).
The customer sees nothing — internal notes are visible only to your team in Intercom.

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When Assist stays quiet

The AI responds directly on conversations it owns. Assist Mode only activates on human-owned conversations.
If the conversation topic matches one of the topics you’ve excluded from Assist in your , Assist stays quiet.
If the AI determines it cannot produce a useful suggestion — because the question is outside your knowledge base or too ambiguous — it stays quiet rather than posting a low-quality draft.
Assist runs per-channel. If the conversation’s channel (web or email) has Assist disabled in Autopilot, no suggestion is posted.

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Set up Assist

1

Complete the Intercom connection

Assist runs on the same webhook as direct AI replies. If you haven’t connected yet, start at Connect Intercom.
2

Enable Assist in Autopilot

Go to Autopilot and enable assist for the channels you want (web, email, or both).
3

Test on a human-owned conversation

Open an Intercom conversation that is not assigned to the AI admin. Send a customer message. An internal note should appear within a few seconds with the AI’s suggested reply.
Start with Assist on a small set of conversations to gauge quality. Once your team is comfortable with the suggestions, expand to more channels.

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Good to know

The conversation stays assigned to whoever owns it. Assist only adds an internal note — it never reassigns, closes, or modifies the conversation state.
When full conversation sync is enabled, OpenCX creates sessions for every conversation — including ones the AI doesn’t own. Assist Mode can post suggestions on all of them.
Conversations assigned to the AI admin get direct AI replies. Conversations assigned to anyone else get Assist suggestions. Both modes run on the same Intercom connection.

Connect Intercom

Credentials and settings — Assist runs on the same webhook.

Conversations

How messages flow and how handoff works.

Channels

Per-channel details for Web and Email.

Troubleshooting

Assist stayed quiet, duplicate notes, draft not posting.