AI Agent Hand-off and Testing
Hand-off is how an AI Agent passes a conversation to your human team. In Resool you decide exactly when that happens (when the AI isn't confident enough, after a number of replies, when the customer asks for a person, or when a sensitive topic comes up), which team receives the conversation and what message the customer sees. Before you publish, the Test panel lets you chat with the agent like a customer, and the Review panel checks your instructions and skills for mistakes.
Before you begin
- You need an AI Agent and the Configure AI agents permission. See AI Agents.
- Set up your teams and the channel's auto-assignment, since handed-off conversations follow the channel's routing. See Channel Settings.
How to set up hand-off
Open the agent and scroll to Hand-off.
AI Agents › open an agent › Hand-off section
The confidence slider at 60%, Hand off after set to 8, a few Hand-off phrases and Sensitive topics as chips, "Send handed-off conversations to" set to The channel's team, and the Arabic and English hand-off message fields.
File: screenshots/ai-agent-handoff-section.png
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Confidence needed to answer | From 30% to 95% (60% by default). Below this, the AI hands off instead of answering. Raise it for fewer, safer answers. |
| Hand off after | The number of AI answers per conversation (1–50, 8 by default) before a person takes over. |
| Hand-off phrases | Phrases that make the agent hand off, in addition to built-in ones like "talk to a person". Type a phrase and press Enter. |
| Sensitive topics | Topics the AI never answers; it hands off right away (for example refund, lawyer, medical). |
| Send handed-off conversations to | A team, or The channel's team. The channel's auto-assignment rules then pick a teammate. |
| Hand-off message (Arabic) / Hand-off message (English) | What the customer sees when the agent hands off, in their language (up to 300 characters each). Leave empty to use the default message. |
Click Save to apply.
What happens at hand-off
- The agent sends the hand-off message to the customer.
- It adds an internal note with the reason, so your team knows why.
- The conversation goes to the team you chose, and the channel's auto-assignment picks a teammate if it's turned on.
- The AI stops replying in that conversation.
| Reason shown in the note | Why the agent handed off |
|---|---|
| Not sure enough | Its confidence was below your threshold. |
| Not in the knowledge base | It couldn't find the answer in your knowledge sources. |
| Customer asked for a person | The customer used a hand-off phrase. |
| Sensitive topic | The message matched a sensitive topic. |
| Reply limit reached | It reached Hand off after, or your workspace ran out of AI requests for the month. |
| AI unavailable | The AI couldn't answer, or the agent was switched off or removed from the channel. |
A teammate can also click Take over in the inbox at any time to stop the AI and assign the conversation to themselves.
How to test an AI Agent
- Save your changes. The test uses the saved version; if you have unsaved changes, the panel reminds you to save.
- In the right panel, open Test.
- Ask a question your customers ask. Nothing in the test is sent to anyone.
- Under each answer, check the Confidence, how many sources matched, and Would run: when a skill would be used. When the agent would hand off, the test shows Would hand off: and the reason.
- Click Start over to begin a new test conversation.
AI Agents › open an agent › Test panel
A test conversation with two questions: one answered with "Confidence 85%" and "2 sources matched", and one showing "Would hand off: Customer asked for a person".
File: screenshots/ai-agent-handoff-test.png
How to review your instructions
Open the Review panel. Resool checks your instructions and skills against your workspace and lists any issues, for example:
- a mentioned team, teammate, tag or contact field that doesn't exist,
- instructions that rely on a skill that isn't enabled,
- a skill with no instructions, or an assign skill with no destination,
- instructions with no clear goal, or that are too long,
- requests AI Agents can't do (reading existing tags or comments, sending videos or voice notes).
Click Recheck after fixing them. The agent header shows Needs attention while issues remain. The review doesn't read your knowledge sources or test real conversations, so always test the agent too.
AI Agents › open an agent › Review panel
The Review panel showing "2 issues found": an unknown tag under Instructions and "The Close conversations skill has no instructions", with the Recheck button.
File: screenshots/ai-agent-handoff-review.png
How to set the wait time
Open Advanced settings (the settings icon in the agent header) and set Wait time: how long the agent waits before replying, from 1 second to 5 minutes. Each new message from the contact resets the timer, so customers who send several short messages get one answer. The reply also takes the agent's processing time (usually 10–15 seconds).
FAQ and troubleshooting
The agent hands off too often.
What you can do:
- Add the missing answers to your Knowledge Base; Not in the knowledge base is the most common reason.
- Lower Confidence needed to answer a little.
- Raise Hand off after if conversations are long.
The agent answers when it should hand off.
Raise the confidence threshold, add the topic to Sensitive topics, or add the words your customers use to Hand-off phrases.
Who receives handed-off conversations?
The team in Send handed-off conversations to, or the channel's team. If the channel has auto-assignment turned on, a teammate is picked automatically; otherwise the conversation waits unassigned in that team.
Can the AI start answering again after a hand-off?
Not on its own. Your team handles the conversation from there. To give it back to the AI, run a workflow with the AI agent step (for example a Shortcut workflow). New conversations on the agent's channels start with the AI again.