Answer emails with AI

Give your chatbot its own email address. When customers write to it, the chatbot answers in the same email thread from your content. You choose for each address whether the AI sends its replies on its own, or writes drafts that your team checks and sends. To answer the email that reaches your current support address too, forward that address to the new one. Email conversations show in Chat History. Your team replies there, and the reply goes out as an email in the same thread. Email is an add-on. The chatbot owner buys it on the Billing page as AI Email Support (Addon), with one inbox for each email address. The add-on is priced per inbox. For the price, see sitegpt.ai/pricing.

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Before you start

• The chatbot owner has a SiteGPT subscription, on any plan. See Plans and limits.
• The chatbot owner has the AI Email Support (Addon), and it covers more inboxes than are in use now. See Buy the email add-on.
• You have the Manager, Admin, or Super Admin role on the chatbot.
• To forward your current support address: access to the settings of that mailbox, for example in Gmail or Outlook.
• Your chatbot is not in a HIPAA workspace. Email is not available there. See HIPAA.

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Buy the email add-on

Only the chatbot owner can buy the add-on, because the add-on belongs to the owner’s account. Each email address is one inbox. The inboxes count across all chatbots that you own. For example, to give two chatbots one address each, set the add-on to 2 inboxes. For the limit, see Email limits. AI replies by email use your plan’s monthly message allowance, like messages on your website. Each AI answer counts when the AI writes it, also a draft that your team later discards. See How messages are counted. To add or remove inboxes later, change the number on the same card and select Add inboxes or Remove inboxes. You cannot set fewer inboxes than are in use. The card shows them, for example “1 of 2 in use.” See Manage your plan and billing.

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Create the email address

SiteGPT sets up the address for you. You do not change any DNS records. The page shows each step, for example Creating your email address and Checking DNS (this can take a few minutes). Setup usually finishes within two minutes, and the page updates by itself. When the address is ready, its badge shows Ready, and the Email card on the Integrations page shows Active. If the email name is taken, you see “This email name is taken. Choose another.” If the name breaks a rule, you see “This email name cannot be used.” Try a different name. If the name before the @ breaks a rule, you see “Use up to 30 lowercase letters, numbers, dots, hyphens or underscores for the address.” If every inbox of your add-on is in use, a notice shows instead of Create email address, for example “All 2 inboxes on your account are in use. Add more on the Billing page, or remove one from another chatbot.” Other team members are told that the account owner can add more on the Billing page.

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Forward your current support address

Customers can write to the new address directly. To answer the email that reaches your current support address too, forward that mailbox to the new address. On the inbox card, select Forward your support address here to see these steps with your address filled in. SiteGPT does not answer the Gmail confirmation email itself.

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Choose drafts or automatic replies

Each address has its own setting. You can change it at any time on the inbox card. The change saves at once. SiteGPT verifies a sender when the sender’s email provider vouches for the address in the From line. Emails that fail this check could be forged, so a person checks the reply first. Replies that the AI wrote end with “Answered by the” and your chatbot name, followed by “AI assistant. Reply to this email to continue.” This also applies to a draft that your team sends without changes. Each reply comes from your chatbot name and the email address. The subject is the subject of the customer’s first email, with “Re:” in front unless it already starts with a reply prefix. An email with no subject gets “Re: Your message”.

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Add more inboxes

A chatbot can have more than one address on its email name, for example support@ and sales@. Each address counts as one inbox of your add-on.

1. On the Email page, select Add another inbox.
2. Enter the name before the @, and choose Drafts for approval or Automatic replies.
3. Select Add inbox.

The page shows how many inboxes your account uses, for example “2 of 3 inboxes in use on your account”. When all inboxes of the add-on are in use, Add another inbox is replaced by a notice that says so and points to the Billing page.

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Set rules for some emails

Rules decide what happens to emails that match a text that you choose. Each address has its own rules. The first rule that matches decides. To ignore one sender or a whole domain, add Sender contains with the address or the domain, and Ignore.

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Emails that SiteGPT does not answer

SiteGPT skips some emails before any rule. It does not answer them, and it does not create a conversation for them. They do not show in Chat History.

• Automatic replies, out-of-office replies, and bounce messages.
• Email from addresses such as noreply@ or mailer-daemon@.
• Newsletters and mailing list email.
• Email that the email service marks as spam.
• Email with no new text after SiteGPT removes the quoted earlier messages and the signature.
• Email from a sender who wrote too many emails in a short time, or a conversation with too many emails in a day. See Email limits.
• Email that SiteGPT itself sent.

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How email conversations work

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What the AI reads

The AI answers the new text of each email from your content, like on your website. SiteGPT removes the quoted earlier messages, reply headers, and the signature first. The first email of a conversation also gives the AI its subject. The AI does not read attachments. It sees only their names, types, and sizes. SiteGPT keeps the files, up to a size limit, and your team can download them in Chat History. Emails with attachments always wait as drafts. Replies that SiteGPT sends have no attachments.

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Conversations

A reply to one of the chatbot’s emails continues the same conversation, if it comes from the customer’s address and the conversation is not resolved. Every other email starts a new conversation, also a reply to a resolved conversation. The customer’s email address and name are saved with the conversation. In Chat History, these conversations show the source Email. See Review conversations.

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Working hours and hand-off

• Working hours apply to email. With Your team answers later, a customer who writes outside your hours gets your away message by email, one time. With Drafts for approval, the away message also waits as a draft.
• With Let the Visitor Choose, email conversations start with the AI. Email has no buttons.
• The AI can hand the conversation to your team when human support is on. Its reply is sent or drafted like any other answer. The conversation then goes to your team, and the AI no longer answers in it.
• The chatbot does not show lead forms by email. The customer’s email address is already saved with the conversation.

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Work with drafts

Open the conversation in Chat History. A draft shows above the reply box with the badge Draft reply, the customer’s address, and the subject. In the conversation, the AI’s answer shows with a dashed outline and the line “Draft: not sent yet.”

• Select Send to send the draft as the AI wrote it. It goes out with the AI note at the end.
• Select Edit, change the text, then select Send edited reply. The edited reply goes out from your team, without the AI note. It shows in the conversation as a reply from you, and the AI’s original answer shows “Not sent as written: it was edited before sending.”
• Select Discard to drop the draft. Nothing is sent.

Sending a draft does not move the conversation to human mode. The AI answers the customer’s next email. A draft does not expire. It closes when the customer writes again, because the AI then answers the newer email, or when a reply from your team goes out first. When you resolve the conversation, its drafts are hidden and can no longer be sent. Every team role can send, edit, and discard drafts. With API v2, use the drafts endpoints of a conversation: list the drafts, send one (optionally with your own text in message), or discard one. See the API reference.

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Reply from Chat History

Replies that you write in the reply box of an email conversation go to the customer as an email in the same thread. They come from the chatbot’s address that received the conversation, or from your own domain when it is verified, with your chatbot name. Your reply moves the conversation to human mode, so the AI stops answering the customer’s next emails. To give it back, select Release to AI. See Reply to and take over conversations. Replies from ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI assistant through the MCP server, and replies sent with API v2, also go out by email. If a reply cannot go out, it stays in the conversation and the dashboard says why. For example: “Saved to the transcript, but the email inbox of this conversation was removed, so nothing was emailed.” In an email conversation, SiteGPT does not send the separate “New reply from” email that website visitors get. Your reply is the email.

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See what happened to each reply

In an email conversation, each message that went out, or should have, shows a line under it. The line says what happened to that email. Messages that the customer never received show with a dashed outline. The AI does not read answers that the customer never received. When it answers the next email, it leaves out drafts, discarded and replaced replies, and emails that bounced or were not sent. The customer’s own messages stay. The conversation in Chat History still shows everything. Below the conversation header, a bar shows the subject, the customer’s address and your address, and the reply setting. If some emails were not delivered, it shows how many. Select Email history to see each email that came in or went out, with its status and attachments.

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Replies to your team’s emails on website conversations

When your team replies to a website conversation and the visitor has left, SiteGPT can email the reply to the visitor. See When SiteGPT emails your reply to the visitor. If your chatbot has an email address that answers, these emails come back to it: the visitor’s answer to the email shows in the conversation. See When the visitor answers the email.

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Send from your own domain (optional)

After the address is ready, replies can come from your own domain, for example support@yourcompany.com, instead of the sitegpt.email address. After the domain is verified, every address of the chatbot sends from your domain with its own name before the @. For example, sales@yourcompany.sitegpt.email sends as sales@yourcompany.com. Customers’ emails still reach the chatbot through forwarding to the sitegpt.email address. If you entered your current support address when you created the first address, replies use it as the reply address, so that mailbox must forward to the chatbot. Otherwise, the reply address is the sitegpt.email address. A chatbot can have one own domain. To use a different domain, select Remove domain first.

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Check that it works

1. From a personal mailbox, send an email with a question to the new address.
2. In Chat History, open the new conversation with the source Email.
3. With Drafts for approval, select Send on the draft. With Automatic replies, the reply goes out on its own.
4. The reply arrives in your personal mailbox in the same thread. In Chat History, the line under the reply shows “Emailed.” and then “Emailed and delivered.”

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Remove an address or email

• Remove one address: on the inbox card, select Remove and confirm. The address stops receiving email at once. You can create it again later.
• Remove email from the chatbot: at the bottom of the Email page, select Remove email and confirm. Every address on the email name stops receiving email, and the email name becomes free.

Removing the last address also removes email from the chatbot. Your conversations stay in Chat History, and their email history stays with the label Inbox removed. The stored copies of the received emails and their attachments are deleted, so attachments can no longer be downloaded. Replies from Chat History in these conversations are saved but not emailed. When you delete the chatbot, SiteGPT removes its email too.

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If an inbox is not covered

An address stops answering when your add-on does not cover it. This happens when the add-on ends, for example when your subscription ends. It also happens when more inboxes are in use than your add-on covers, for example after a chatbot transfer. The inboxes that became yours first keep answering. The newer inboxes pause. An inbox that came to you with a chatbot transfer counts as your newest inbox at the time of the transfer. A paused address stays set up. SiteGPT does not answer new emails to it, and they do not show in Chat History. Drafts stay, but you cannot send them, and replies from Chat History are saved but not emailed. On the Integrations page, the Email card shows Not answering, or for example 1 not answering. The inbox card says why, for example “Not answering: the account no longer has the AI Email Support add-on.” To start again, add inboxes on the Billing page, or remove an address that you do not need.

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Troubleshooting