The AI agent

Sidebar: AI agent → Agent. Where you configure what the AI says, what it knows, and whether it runs at all. Three tabs: Overview, Knowledge, Preview.

Two sub-pages hang off it in the sidebar: AI Playground and Trust & Guardrails.

Changing anything on this page needs the manage_agent capability — owner and admin only. The master switch is the one control that hides itself from other roles (they see its On/Off state plus a note naming who can change it); the other cards still show their controls, and pressing Save on them is refused with "Only owners and admins can change what the AI says or knows."

Overview tab

The setup card

At the top, Let's get your AI working — or Your AI is ready once all three are done. Three things the agent needs from you:

1. Teach it about your business — knowledge to answer from.
2. Give it your voice — so replies sound like you rather than like a bot.
3. Point it at a goal — so it moves people toward a link, a lead, or a follow.

The list reads your live setup and ticks itself off as you go. It stays live: clear your knowledge or switch your goal off and it says so again.

This card answers "is my AI configured?". The full go-live path, including connecting a channel, lives at /onboarding.

Reply to DMs automatically (the master switch)

The single most important control on the page, and it ships off.

• On — the agent answers DMs your automations don't catch, using your knowledge and instructions.
• Off — those DMs land in your Inbox for you to answer. Nothing is sent on your behalf.

The line under the switch when it's off is the important one: your keyword automations, flows and comment replies still run; only the open-ended AI fallback is off. Turning the agent off does not turn HyperDM off.

To change it: flip the toggle. It saves immediately — there is no Save button for this one.

Goals

What the agent should be doing in your DMs. Toggles, with these defaults:

Instructions

A free-text box: "Tell it what you'd tell a sharp new hire."

Example: Recover carts, answer sizing from the catalog, and hand refunds over $50 to me.

This is your brand voice and your standing orders in one. It is fed into every reply.

Reply length

Short (one short sentence) / Medium (1–3 short sentences) / Long (up to 5 short sentences). Medium is the default.

Response pacing

None / ~2s / ~5s / ~10s. A short pause plus a typing indicator before the reply, so it doesn't land machine-instant. None is the default; ~10s is the longest the picker offers.

Lead-capture confirmation

The message sent after a goal-capture email lands, e.g. "Perfect — got it. Thanks!" Leave it blank for the built-in default. Merge tags like {{first_name}} work here.

Click Save changes to persist Goals, Instructions, Reply length, Pacing and this confirmation together.

Trust & guardrails summary

A one-line summary of your current guardrails — discount cap, refund escalation, and the product-card setting — linking through to Trust & Guardrails.

Conversation goals

Separate from the Goals toggles above. After the agent answers a question, it can append one friendly nudge toward a goal — at most once per person per day. It sends the copy you configure here; it does not compose a new one at send time.

Three kinds:

To set one up:

1. Toggle the goal on.
2. Fill in its field (URL for Share a link, field key for Capture a lead).
3. Write the Nudge message, or click Draft with AI to have one written for you. The draft lands in the box — it is not saved and nothing is sent until you review it and click Save.
4. For Capture a lead, choose When the email lands, then…:
   • Nothing more (just save it)
   • Send a follow-up message — and write it
   • Hand the thread to a human
5. Click Save goals.

AI Comments

Public replies under your Instagram posts, in your voice. Growth and up.

It replies only to clearly positive comments. Neutral comments, negative comments and questions are left for you — that boundary is the whole design.

1. Toggle AI Comments on.
2. Optionally set a Tone: e.g. "Warm and playful, one line, loves an emoji but never salesy."
3. Add Example replies — paste 3–5 replies you'd actually send. Instagram won't let us read your past replies, so this is how the agent learns your voice.
4. Click Preview 5 sample replies. You see what it would say on sample positive comments.
5. If it looks right, save below to switch it on.

AI Comments reply under your own posts and reels. They never post under an ad on their own, and they stay out of any comment a Comment → DM automation has answered — on a post or on an ad. See instagram-ad-comments.md.

The Knowledge tab

Everything the agent's answers come from. Four main ways in, ordered by how little you need to already have — plus a fifth, Add a single link: when a Preview or Playground answer comes back ungrounded, the inline shortcut offers Add link, which teaches the agent one page (not a whole-site crawl); re-adding the same URL refreshes it rather than duplicating it.

Paste it (works for everyone)

1. In the Knowledge card, enter a Label — faq, pricing, shipping_policy.
2. Paste your FAQs, policies, services, prices or product details in the box below.
3. Click Ingest.

Import from your website

1. Enter your domain, e.g. yourbrand.com.
2. Click Crawl & ingest.

HyperDM crawls your product, shipping and FAQ pages and learns them.

Sync your Shopify catalog

1. Enter your store domain, e.g. store.myshopify.com.
2. Click Sync catalog.

Your published products land in Products with images and buy links, so the agent can send a real product card. It reads Shopify's public storefront feed — drafts and live inventory are not included.

Load a sample

Click Load sample to seed demo knowledge (catalog, shipping policy, returns policy) so you can see the agent work before writing anything real. Replace it before going live.

Connected sources

Sources that can re-sync appear in a Connected sources card. For each you can:

• Set the cadence: Manual, Daily, or Weekly.
• Click Sync now — allowed once per source every 15 minutes.
• Click Remove.

Auto re-sync keeps the agent current as your business changes.

Everything you've ingested

Every chunk is listed below the Knowledge card, labelled by its source, each with a Remove button — that is how you delete pasted knowledge, or clear the sample data before going live.

Ingest has a workspace-wide ceiling of 2,000 chunks per day (resets midnight UTC); hitting it shows the exact limit message rather than silently dropping content.

How much knowledge you can have

The Free plan allows one knowledge source of your own — and two things never count toward it: your Shopify catalog and the Load sample demo data. Re-pasting under the same label (or re-crawling the same site) replaces that source rather than using a second slot, which is how you update the one you have. Every paid plan is unlimited. The chunk count is shown on the Knowledge card: "N chunks the agent grounds its answers on."

The Preview tab

Ask the agent anything and read the real answer from your ingested knowledge. Starter questions are offered ("Is the linen dress in stock?", "What's your return policy?", "Do you ship to Canada?").

The Preview tab already shows the grounding label, the model and cost per answer, and — when an answer couldn't be grounded — the inline Add text / Add link shortcut whose Save & re-answer closes the gap on the spot. The AI Playground is the same engine with a running transcript, so you can watch the same question answered before and after you add knowledge.

Common questions

I turned the agent on and nothing happened. The agent is the last thing to see a message. Anything your automations catch never reaches it. Also check that Instagram is connected and that the person's 24-hour window is open. See troubleshooting.md.

The agent said "I don't know". That is the designed behaviour when it cannot ground an answer — it hands off rather than inventing one. Add the missing fact in the Knowledge tab. The Analytics Knowledge gaps card lists exactly what to write.

Can I stop it replying to one person without turning it off for everyone? Yes — Take over in the Inbox, or Pause automations in that contact's drawer in Contacts.

Can I stop everything at once? Yes — Settings → Workspace → Pause everything. See settings.md.

Why can't I change anything here? Configuring the agent needs manage_agent — owner and admin only. This is deliberate: agent is the role team invites hand out by default, and without the gate a support hire could turn the AI on for the whole customer base on their first day.

Reviewing imported knowledge before the agent uses it

Imported text needs owner/admin review in Agent → Knowledge before the assistant uses it. Read each full chunk and approve its exact revision for 90 days; changed text, expiry or revocation removes approval. Add approved answer links there too. Product descriptions need reviewed knowledge; direct catalog fields still supply price/stock/link. Preview and Playground show retrieval separately from the draft support check. AI can make mistakes, including repeating a false approved source. Enable human review for detected uncertainty.

Connection errors in Preview, Playground and Knowledge keep the controls available to retry. An import is pending review: expand a passage and check its current facts before approval. Teammates without agent-management permission can read knowledge but cannot approve or change it.