Pausing and resuming AI automation and handing off to a human

Why pause automation

When the AI agent is active in a conversation, it automatically replies to every new message from the customer. In some cases you need a human to take over — a delicate negotiation, a complaint, or a case outside the agent's scope. To do that, simply pause automation in that conversation.

Pause automation in a conversation

In the live chat, open the conversation you want and use the automation control to pause it. From that point on:

• The AI agent stops replying automatically in that conversation.
• The human agent can send messages normally.
• Incoming messages keep appearing in the chat for the team to answer.

💡 Tip: add a reason when pausing (e.g. "manual intervention") so the rest of the team understands the conversation's context.

Resume automation

When the human handoff is done, use the same control to resume automation. The agent goes back to answering the next messages in that conversation normally. The full history is preserved, so the AI keeps all the previous context.

Soft reset: "Clear AI sessions"

If a conversation's automation gets stuck (for example, paused by mistake or permanently stopped), you can run a soft reset known as "clear AI sessions". This reset:

1. Reactivates automation and clears the pause/stop states.
2. Keeps the entire message history — nothing is deleted.
3. Makes the AI reply again with full context on the next message.

For a truly "from scratch" restart, archive the conversation instead of running the soft reset.

Behavior summary

With automation paused, the human controls the conversation; with automation active, the AI replies. You can switch between the two states as many times as you need, without losing any messages.