Docs About Instinctor Instagent AI Chat

Instagent AI Chat

Instagent is Instinctor's built-in AI chat system. It handles customer questions automatically, checks booking availability, creates appointments, and escalates to a human agent when needed. It runs on Anthropic's Claude model.

What Instagent does

Instagent answers visitor questions in real time using:

  • The store's business description and brand profile (set in Settings)
  • Live store data: appointment slots, service catalog, product inventory, order status
  • The site's knowledge base (if configured)

When a visitor asks about availability, Instagent calls the live booking system and responds with actual available slots. It does not give generic answers from a static FAQ.

When it cannot answer confidently, it routes the conversation to a human agent (handoff). The handoff is seamless: the human sees the full chat history and picks up where the AI left off.

Booking and scheduling

If the site has the booking system enabled, Instagent can:

  • Check which services are available and on which dates
  • Show available time slots
  • Create bookings when the visitor confirms a service, date, time, and their name
  • Confirm the appointment back to the visitor

This is a live integration with the booking system, not a static calendar link.

Human handoff

Instagent monitors conversation quality. If it detects it cannot help (complex questions, complaints, escalations), it transfers the conversation to the Chat workspace where a human agent can respond. The agent sees the full prior context. The visitor sees a notification that they are being connected to a person.

A configurable handoff timeout also routes conversations to human agents if no reply comes within a set number of minutes.

Customer data context

When a visitor is identified (by email or phone from the pre-chat form), Instagent can access:

  • Order history and status
  • Cart contents
  • Previous conversation notes

This is a setting. It can be disabled if customer data should not inform AI responses.

SMS and WhatsApp

Instagent works across the chat widget, SMS, and WhatsApp. Conversations from all channels appear in the same Chat workspace. The AI responds on all channels with the same logic.

Setup

Enable AI in Settings > Chat > AI section. Fill in the store description and brand voice fields in Settings > Store Info. Those two inputs are the main context Instagent uses. Additional system instructions can be added in the "Store info" textarea for edge cases (hours, policies, specific product details).

AI delay

Instagent has a configurable reply delay (0 to 300 seconds). This controls how long the "typing" indicator shows before the AI response appears. A short delay feels natural; zero delay can feel robotic. Default is 30 seconds.

Instagent on instinctor.com

The Instagent chat widget on instinctor.com is configured to answer questions about Instinctor as a product: pricing, features, how the builder works, comparisons with other platforms, and getting started. It does not handle booking for instinctor.com (that is not a service instinctor.com sells through the chat). For getting help with your own site, the same AI is available inside the editor in Help mode.

In-editor Help mode

Inside the Impulse editor, clicking the Help button opens the same AI with access to the Instinctor knowledge base. It answers builder questions: how to configure a specific block, what a setting does, how to achieve a layout. This is separate from the customer-facing chat widget on the site.