# Human Handoff

> Hand a conversation from the AI Agent to a person: when it triggers, what the visitor sees, the AI Summary your team reads, topic routing, and email notifications.

The Human Handoff feature ensures that conversations requiring human attention are seamlessly transferred to a Human Agent.

It is particularly useful for handling questions beyond the AI Agent's Knowledge Base or when users explicitly request to speak to a person. During Human Handoff, the AI Agent pauses, and the Human Agent takes over the conversation via the Inbox.

Here's what happens on the user's side:

1. The user interacts with the AI Agent.
2. If the request is beyond the AI's capability or the user explicitly requests a human, the AI notifies the user about the transfer.
3. The conversation is unassigned from the AI and assigned to a Human Agent.
4. The Human Agent resolves the query or reassigns the AI Agent to continue.

![Human handoff from Visitor perspective.](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/handoff_widget.BgkG8M6x.webp)

And here's what you'll see inside the Quickchat AI interface:

1. The unassigned conversation appears in the Inbox.
2. Your team member reviews the AI Summary to understand the conversation so far.
3. The team member takes over the conversation and handles the user's request.
4. The team member either marks the conversation as resolved or reassigns.

![Human handoff from Quickchat AI's User perspective.](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/interface.aYquez7d.webp)

## Enable Human Handoff

Navigate to **Actions & MCPs** in the left sidebar, find the **Human Handoff** card under **Quickchat AI Actions**, and toggle the switch to "on." Click **Edit Action** to configure the details.

![Enabling human handoff in Quickchat AI's App.](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/handoff_enable.BvVq3NDN.webp)

You can then configure the following options:

**Human Agent's Availability**

Define the availability of Human Agents to ensure that Handoff requests are only initiated during working hours.

- Specify **Working Hours**: Set start and end times and select working days.
- Select **Time Zone**: Ensure the schedule matches your region.
- Configure an **Out-of-Hours Message**: Let users know when no Human Agents are available.

![Configuring Agent availability settings](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/handoff_agents.DuBTGRTe.webp)

## Question

Define the question the AI will ask before initiating Handoff.

**\*Example**: Would you like me to connect you with our Customer Support team?\*

![Configuring handoff question](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/handoff_question.5WmeVKUk.webp)

## Confirmation

Specify the confirmation message sent when the Handoff is initiated.

**\*Example**: I understand. I will transfer you to our Customer Support team. Please wait while I connect you.\*

![Configuring handoff confirmation message](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/handoff_confirmation.DILiKVzw.webp)

## AI Summary

Enable AI Summaries to automatically generate a short note summarizing the conversation so far. This summary provides the Human Agent with all the context needed to quickly address the user's request.

![Configuring AI summary settings](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/handoff_summary.BZhJG5aU.webp)

## Handoff Rules

Describe the situations in which Human Handoff should be triggered. Each rule has a **Name**, a plain-language **Description**, and a **State** toggle so you can enable or disable rules without deleting them.

Quickchat AI ships with a default set of rules covering the most common handoff triggers:

- **Media Message** — the user sent an image, file, or other media the AI can't process.
- **User Frustration** — the user is explicitly angry, frustrated, or dissatisfied.
- **Customer Support Suggestion** — the AI Agent has told the user to contact customer support as the next step, or has clearly ended AI-based assistance.
- **Lack Of Knowledge** — the AI Agent has acknowledged it doesn't have the necessary information.
- **Irrelevant Advice** — the AI Agent has repeatedly tried to help but the user is still not satisfied.

You can toggle any of these on or off, and add your own rules with a custom **Name** and **Description** that tells the AI when to trigger.

:::tip
Write rule descriptions like instructions to the AI. _"The user has explicitly asked for a refund of more than $100"_ is testable; _"escalate VIPs"_ is not (the AI has no way to know who's a VIP unless that's in conversation metadata).
:::

In addition to rules, you can list **Keywords** that will **always** force a Human Handoff regardless of context — useful for compliance words like "lawsuit", "GDPR", or "chargeback" that you never want the AI to handle.

## Topic routing

When Human Handoff fires, **Topic routing** sends the conversation to the human agent best suited to handle that topic instead of leaving it unassigned in a shared queue.

Configure routing by mapping each topic (defined under **Insights → Manage Topics**) to one or more team members. When a handoff is triggered, Quickchat reads the conversation's detected topic and routes the conversation to one of the agents assigned to that topic. If no rule matches, the conversation is left unassigned for any teammate to pick up from the Inbox.

## Email Notifications

Configure email addresses to receive notifications when a new conversation requires a Human Handoff.

Here's how it looks:

![Configuring email notification settings](https://docs.quickchat.ai/_astro/handoff_email.AI8iTEcp.webp)

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