Agent settings. Personality, instructions and safety net.
Optimize is where you shape how the agent talks and behaves: its name, role, language and tone, your instructions, the greeting and starters, when it hands over and which details it collects.
Where to find it
Train → Optimize. Settings are per agent and save automatically a moment after you stop typing. A live preview of your widget sits beside the form; See it in a reply saves your change and asks a sample question so you can see the effect.
Optimize has three tabs: Personality (identity, voice and tone), Behaviour (instructions and conversation) and Handover and leads (safety net and lead capture). A dot on a tab means something there still needs finishing.
Personality
| Setting | Options | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Agent name | Text | Shown in the chat header and on every reply. |
| Primary language | Match the customer's language (default), English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch | Match the customer's language replies in the visitor's language; any other choice answers in that language every time. |
| Role | Support agent, Sales representative, Product expert, Shopping assistant, Receptionist | Sets the agent's approach and the suggested starters. |
| Handles | Support, Lead capture, Commerce | What the agent does. At least one stays on. Commerce needs Shopify connected to this agent. |
| Industry (More options) | 25 sectors | Adds your industry as context. |
| Tone | Professional, Friendly, Empathetic, Witty, Formal, Concise, Direct, Warm | How replies sound. Tone also decides emoji use: none for Professional and Formal, a few for Friendly, Warm and Witty. |
| Response length | Short, Standard, Detailed | Short is 1 to 3 sentences; Standard 3 to 6; Detailed adds structure such as headings. Messaging channels always get plain text. |
| Creativity | Precise, Balanced, Creative | How freely the agent words its answers. Precise suits most businesses. |
| Brand voice | Text | Style guidance, for example words to use or avoid. |
Instructions
Under Behaviour → Instructions, tell the agent what it needs to know beyond your knowledge:
| Field | Use it for |
|---|---|
| What does your business do? | The core facts, in a few sentences. + Start from what your knowledge covers drafts it for you. |
| How should it behave? | General rules, for example "Always offer the size guide for shoe questions". |
| Specific situations | One rule per line for particular cases. |
| What should it never do? | Hard limits, for example "Never promise delivery dates". Enforced on every channel. |
The agent answers only from your knowledge. Instructions shape how it answers; they do not add facts it can quote. Put facts in the Knowledge Base.
Conversation
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Greeting title and subtitle | "Hello, how can I help you today?" | The first thing visitors see in the widget. |
| Conversation starters | None | Up to 3 questions shown under the greeting, 60 characters each. Suggestions come from your role and from questions you answered in Missing answers. |
| Reply feedback | On | Thumbs up and down under each reply. A thumbs-down adds the question to Missing answers. |
| Links to your pages | Off | When an answer came from a page of your website, the reply ends with a link to that page. The agent can only link to pages in your knowledge. Website chat only. |
After an answer the agent may suggest up to two follow-up questions that your knowledge can answer. When it has none, the widget shows your starters the visitor has not asked yet.
Safety net
Under Handover and leads → Safety net you decide what happens when a person is needed (see Handover and inbox for the full flow):
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Escalation email | Your email | Receives an alert for each handover. Send a test alert checks it arrives. |
| Billing email | Empty | Optional: billing handovers go here instead. |
| WhatsApp alerts number | Empty | Optional: a WhatsApp alert for urgent cases (security, distress, critical urgency) and when a response target is missed. |
| Auto-resume after (hours) | 24 | A handed-over conversation that goes quiet this long returns to the agent. 0 turns it off. |
| Custom escalation triggers | None | Up to 20 words or phrases (for example "warranty", "damaged") that always hand the conversation over. |
| Autonomous mode | Off | The agent never hands over: it tells the visitor their question has been passed on and emails your team instead. |
Lead capture
Switch on Collect contact details and choose up to 3 of Name, Email, Phone and Company (Email or Phone must be one of them). The agent asks naturally after it has helped, never as a form up front. See Lead capture for how it works.