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AI assistant

Relay's AI assistant helps your team answer customers faster. It does two things:

  • Drafts: one click in the Inbox writes a suggested reply. You can edit it before you send.
  • Auto-reply bot: it answers new inbound messages on its own, and hands the conversation to a human when it can't help.

Both use your business context and your knowledge base, so their answers follow your policies and product details.

AI is funded by Relay. You don't need an account with an AI provider, and you don't need an API key. Relay chooses the AI model for your plan.

When to use it

  • Use drafts when you want answers written faster, but still want a person to check every message.
  • Use the auto-reply bot to cover common questions out of hours, or at high volume, with a clear handoff to your team.
  • Use the knowledge base to give both of them accurate facts: FAQs, policies, prices, opening hours.

Plans and roles

FeaturePlanWho can use it
Drafts and the PlaygroundStarter+Agents, admins and owners
Auto-reply botBusinessTurned on by admins and owners
Knowledge baseBusinessManaged by admins and owners
Changing the AI setupAny planAdmin+
The Usage tabAny planAdmin+

Each AI action uses one AI credit. See AI credits below.

Where it lives

Open AI Agents from the left rail. The page has three tabs:

  • Playground: try a conversation with the assistant before you let it talk to customers.
  • Setup: the assistant's configuration.
  • Usage: how many tokens drafts, the bot and knowledge-base indexing have used. Admin+

If your workspace hasn't set up the AI assistant yet, the page opens on Setup. Once it's set up, it opens on Playground.

Set up the assistant Admin+

Only admins and owners can change the AI configuration. Other roles see the settings but can't edit them.

  1. Go to AI Agents → Setup.
  2. In Business context & instructions, describe your business: what you sell, your tone, and what the assistant may and may not promise. For example: "We are Acme, a coffee-equipment store. Be warm and concise. Never quote prices or delivery dates — hand off to a human for those." This context feeds both drafts and auto-replies.
  3. Turn on Enable AI assistant. This is the master switch: drafts in the Inbox only work while it's on.
  4. Optional Business: turn on Auto-reply to inbound messages, then set:
    • Max auto-replies per conversation, from 1 to 20. After this many bot replies in one conversation, the bot goes quiet in that conversation.
    • Hand off to: a specific teammate, or Unassigned queue (any agent can pick it up).
  5. Click Save.
The Setup tab of the AI Agents page showing Business context & instructions, the Enable AI assistant and Auto-reply switches, Max auto-replies per conversation and Hand off to.The Setup tab of the AI Agents page showing Business context & instructions, the Enable AI assistant and Auto-reply switches, Max auto-replies per conversation and Hand off to.
The Setup tab: business context (1), the master switch (2) and the auto-reply bot (3).

To switch the assistant off completely, click Remove. This deletes the AI configuration.

Drafts Starter+

  1. Open a conversation in the Inbox.
  2. Click the sparkle button, Draft a reply with AI, next to the composer.
  3. The draft appears in the composer. Edit it as you like, then send it yourself.
The Inbox composer with the Draft a reply with AI sparkle button highlighted.The Inbox composer with the Draft a reply with AI sparkle button highlighted.
The Draft a reply with AI button (1) fills the composer. It never sends anything on its own.
  • A draft never sends itself. It only fills the composer.
  • The assistant drafts from the recent conversation, your business context and the relevant parts of your knowledge base.
  • The customer must have sent at least one message. Otherwise you'll see "No messages to draft from yet."
  • The button isn't shown in note mode, because notes are for your team only.
  • Each draft uses one AI credit. Drafts are also rate-limited per person and per workspace, to stop runaway clicking.

The auto-reply bot Business

When auto-reply is on, the bot answers new inbound messages by itself.

  • It replies from the same WhatsApp number the customer wrote to.
  • It always replies inside the 24-hour window, because it only responds to a message that has just arrived.
  • Its messages carry an AI badge in the Inbox ("Sent automatically by the AI assistant").
  • Each reply uses one AI credit.

When the bot stays silent

The bot doesn't reply when:

  • your plan doesn't include auto-reply;
  • Enable AI assistant or Auto-reply to inbound messages is off;
  • a flow or an automation on that number handles the message (flows and automations always win);
  • a teammate is assigned to the conversation;
  • the bot has been paused on the conversation, after a handoff or by a teammate;
  • the conversation has reached Max auto-replies per conversation;
  • your workspace is out of AI credits;
  • a burst of messages exceeds the bot's rate limit on that number.

In those cases the message simply waits in the Inbox for a person.

Human handoff

When the bot decides it can't help, it hands the conversation over:

  1. It pauses itself on that conversation. It won't reply there again until someone clicks Resume AI.
  2. It leaves a short note on the conversation, for example: 🤖 AI agent handed off after 2 replies. Last customer message: "can I speak to a manager about my refund?"
  3. If you chose a teammate in Hand off to and the conversation is unassigned, it assigns the conversation to that teammate. Otherwise the conversation stays where it is.
  4. It raises an AI handed off a conversation notification. The assigned teammate receives it. If the conversation is left unassigned, every owner and admin receives it.

Take over or resume from the Inbox

In a conversation, a banner shows what the bot is doing:

  • AI assistant is replying automatically, with Take over. Take over pauses the bot on this conversation and assigns the conversation to you.
  • AI assistant is paused here, with the handoff note and Resume AI. Resume AI lets the bot answer in this conversation again.

On a number that's also live in the WhatsApp Business App, replying from the phone pauses the bot too. The note then says "📱 Answered from the WhatsApp Business App — AI auto-reply paused."

AI credits

  • One credit is one AI action: a draft, an auto-reply or a Playground message.
  • Your plan sets how many credits you get each billing period. See Usage and limits.
  • When you reach the limit, drafts are refused and you see an upgrade prompt, and the bot skips replies. Messages then wait for a person.

The Usage tab on AI Agents shows tokens spent by drafts, the auto-reply bot and knowledge-base indexing. You can view the last 7, 30 or 90 days. It shows counts only; no message content is stored there. Admin+

Knowledge base Business

The knowledge base holds documents the assistant can look things up in, such as FAQs, policies and product details.

  1. On the Setup tab, scroll to Knowledge base.
  2. Click Add document.
  3. Enter a Title, for example "Returns & refunds policy", and paste the text into Content.
  4. Click Save document.
The Knowledge base card with the Add document button and a list of documents.The Knowledge base card with the Add document button and a list of documents.
Add document (1) adds a new entry to the knowledge base.

You can edit or delete a document with the icons next to it. Deleting removes it from the assistant's knowledge straight away.

How the assistant uses it

  • Each document is split into short passages.
  • When the assistant drafts or replies, it looks up the few passages most relevant to the conversation, and uses only those. It never reads the whole knowledge base at once.
  • Search is semantic (by meaning) when it's available. Otherwise it's keyword search. The Knowledge base card tells you which is in use.
  • Reindex rebuilds the search index for every document. It appears only when semantic search is available and you have at least one document.

Troubleshooting

Clicking Draft shows "AI isn't set up yet". An admin needs to turn on Enable AI assistant in AI Agents → Setup.

Clicking Draft shows an upgrade prompt. Your plan doesn't include AI drafts, or your workspace is out of AI credits.

"No messages to draft from yet." The customer hasn't sent anything in this conversation yet. Start with a template instead.

The bot isn't replying. Check the list in When the bot stays silent. The most common causes are that a teammate is assigned, the bot was paused (look for the "AI assistant is paused here" banner), or a flow or automation handled the message.

The bot stopped after a few replies. The conversation reached Max auto-replies per conversation. Raise the limit in Setup, or have a teammate take over.

Answers ignore my knowledge base. Make sure the facts are in a document, keep documents focused, and use the words customers actually use. If you have edited several documents, click Reindex.

I can't see the Usage tab. It's shown only to admins and owners.