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Onboarding Deep Dive Handoff And Escalation

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Deep-Dive: Handoff and Escalation

This module covers human monitoring and intervention in Airgentic conversations. Read this when you want to set up live monitoring, understand when to intervene, or plan escalation workflows.

Who this is for

  • Operators who monitor and intervene in conversations
  • Platform administrators who configure handoff modes
  • Anyone planning live support alongside AI

What you'll learn

  • How the Human Handoff screen works
  • The three service operating modes
  • When and how to intervene in conversations
  • Automatic attention flags and what triggers them
  • Best practices for human-AI collaboration

The Human Handoff system

What it provides

Human Handoff lets your team:

  • Monitor active conversations in real time
  • See when conversations need attention
  • Take over conversations from the AI
  • Hand conversations back to the AI
  • Set the overall operating mode for your service

This enables a hybrid model where AI handles most interactions, but humans can step in when needed.

Where to find it

Go to Human Handoff in the admin console. The screen maintains a live connection and updates automatically.

Operating modes

Each service can run in one of three modes:

AI Only

Aspect Description
AI behaviour Handles all conversations
Human involvement None — no monitoring, no intervention
When to use Fully autonomous operation, no support staff availability

Human-Supported AI

Aspect Description
AI behaviour Responds normally to all conversations
Human involvement Can monitor, see flags, and take over when needed
When to use Standard operation — AI handles most, humans available for escalation

This is the most common mode for services with any human support capability.

Human Only

Aspect Description
AI behaviour Disabled — does not respond
Human involvement Must respond to every conversation
When to use Rare — perhaps during critical incidents or specific use cases

Switching modes:
- Change mode per service using the button group
- Change all services at once with "Set all services"

Monitoring conversations

The conversation list

Active conversations appear under each service, showing:

  • Status badge — AI Active (green) or Paused (yellow)
  • Agent badge — Which specialist agent is handling
  • Location — Customer's detected city
  • Opening question — Preview of the first message
  • Time — When it started
  • Message count — Total messages exchanged

Attention flags

Conversations requiring attention are highlighted with a red pulsing border and coloured badge:

Flag Trigger
Thumbs Down User gave a negative rating
Non-Answer AI couldn't answer the question
Negative Feedback Negative sentiment detected
Help Requested User asked for a human

These conversations increment the Needs Attention counter in the stats bar.

Why flags matter:
- They surface the conversations most likely to need help
- They help you prioritise limited attention
- They indicate potential service quality issues

The stats bar

Three counters give a live summary:

Counter Meaning
Active Conversations Total conversations in progress
Needs Attention Flagged conversations
Paused (Human) Conversations where a human has taken over

Intervening in conversations

Viewing a conversation

Click any conversation card to open the detail panel:

  • Full transcript with messages colour-coded by role
  • User messages (blue), AI responses (white), human messages (green), system messages (yellow)
  • All citations and references

Taking over

Click Take Over Conversation to:
1. Claim the conversation
2. Pause the AI (it stops responding)
3. Notify the customer that a human has joined

Once you've taken over:
- Type responses in the message input area
- Send with Send button or Ctrl + Enter
- Your messages appear in green

Resuming AI

Click Resume AI to:
1. Hand control back to the AI
2. The AI will respond from the next customer message
3. A system message notifies the customer

Releasing without resuming

Click Release to:
1. Remove your claim on the conversation
2. Leave it paused for another agent
3. The AI stays paused until someone resumes it or takes over

Multi-agent coordination

If another agent has already claimed a conversation:
- A blue banner shows their name
- The Take Over button is disabled
- You can release the conversation for them to handle

Escalation workflows

Built-in escalation

The escalate_to_human global function provides programmatic escalation:

  1. AI detects the user wants a human (or is instructed to offer escalation)
  2. Function collects customer details (name, email, optional reason)
  3. Conversation summary is emailed to your support team
  4. AI confirms to the user that their request has been escalated

This creates an asynchronous handoff — the user doesn't wait for a live agent.

Live escalation

For real-time escalation:

  1. User asks for a human
  2. AI can be prompted to acknowledge and indicate someone is available
  3. Staff monitoring Human Handoff sees the flag
  4. Staff takes over and responds directly

This requires someone actively monitoring.

Designing your escalation approach

Approach Works when
No escalation AI handles everything; users contact support separately if needed
Async escalation Staff aren't available for live chat; email follow-up is acceptable
Live escalation Staff monitor during business hours; users expect real-time response
Hybrid Async outside hours, live during business hours

Best practices

When to intervene

Do intervene when:
- User is clearly frustrated and needs human empathy
- AI is stuck in a loop or giving obviously wrong answers
- The question requires authoritative human judgment
- User explicitly asks for a human
- High-stakes or sensitive situations

Don't intervene when:
- AI is handling the conversation well
- You'd just be saying what the AI said
- The user is exploring and doesn't need help
- Intervening would slow down resolution

How to intervene effectively

  1. Read the full conversation — Understand what's already happened
  2. Acknowledge the user — Let them know a human is now helping
  3. Resolve or escalate — Either answer their question or tell them next steps
  4. Decide on handback — Will AI or human handle any follow-up?

Maintaining quality

  • Review flagged conversations regularly — Don't let the queue build up
  • Look for patterns — Are certain questions always getting flagged?
  • Feed learnings back — Use issues to improve prompts, content, or curated answers
  • Train staff — Make sure everyone knows how to use the handoff screen

Notifications

You don't have to stay on the Human Handoff page:

  • Sound notification plays when a conversation needs attention
  • Toast notification appears even if you're on another admin page
  • This lets you monitor while working on other tasks

Common scenarios

User wants to complain

  1. Flag triggers (negative sentiment or thumbs down)
  2. Monitor sees the flag
  3. Takes over and acknowledges the user's frustration
  4. Either resolves or escalates to appropriate team
  5. Decides whether to resume AI or close manually

AI can't answer

  1. Non-Answer flag triggers
  2. Monitor reviews what was asked
  3. If answer exists, takes over and provides it (then considers adding curated answer)
  4. If answer doesn't exist, explains to user and offers alternative

Sensitive topic

  1. AI may be prompted to decline or escalate
  2. Human takes over to handle appropriately
  3. May need to consult policy or other staff before responding

Metrics to track

From Insights, monitor:

Metric What it indicates
Non-Answer rate Content gaps or prompt issues
Thumbs down rate User satisfaction problems
Negative sentiment rate Overall experience quality
Escalation requests User expectation for human support

High rates in any of these suggest investigation and improvement.

Back to: Optional Deep-Dives

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