Does the customer see a message when AskVault escalates to a human?

When the AI hands off, it tells the visitor in its own words that a teammate will join. When a visitor clicks Talk to a human in the widget, they see 'Connecting you to a support agent...' until someone joins.

Can the AskVault bot continue helping after a conversation is escalated?

When the AI or a teammate pauses it, no: the AI stays quiet in that conversation until a teammate clicks Resume AI or resolves it. If nobody was reachable, the handoff doesn't happen and the AI keeps helping.

Will an AskVault conversation revert to the bot if no human agent responds?

In the website widget, a visitor who clicked Talk to a human is told nobody is available after 2 minutes, and the AI answers from their next message. A conversation the AI paused stays paused until a teammate acts. Nothing auto-resolves it.

Escalate a conversation to a human

Written by Joseph Russo, Principal Architect, Networks and Tech, AskVault · Reviewed by Allison Chan

Last updated: October 10, 2026 · 3 min read

Ways a conversation is escalated

The AI hands off. The escalate_to_human skill fires when the visitor asks for a person or has a problem the AI can't solve. The AI is paused.
The visitor asks. The Talk to a human button in the website widget.
An automation rule. A rule with the Escalate action. See automation rules.
A teammate escalates. The Escalate button on a conversation in Chat History.
A teammate takes over. Take over in the Help Desk assigns the conversation to them and pauses the AI.

Paths 1 and 2 need live chat on for the workspace. Live chat is off for every new workspace by default. To turn it on, open Channels > Web widget and switch on Let visitors talk to a human. Live chat is included on the Growth plan and above; on lower plans the switch is locked and names the plan you need.

What happens on escalate

The conversation is marked escalated and shows in the Help Desk inbox.
The AI is paused for paths 1 and 5. For the other paths, the AI pauses once a teammate takes over.
It lands unassigned, unless a teammate took it over. Auto-assignment runs only when a teammate escalates from Chat History.
The conversation.escalated webhook fires for paths 1 to 4.
The workspace owner gets an in-app notification for path 1.

Open Help Desk tabs get a real-time alert with a sound for paths 1 and 4. The others show up on the inbox's next refresh, within 10 seconds.

Nothing emails or messages your team. To get a Slack or Discord alert, subscribe a webhook to conversation.escalated on the Webhooks page and point it at an incoming-webhook URL.

Routing

There are no routing rules. Escalations are not sent to teams, pools or specific agents by channel, tag, audience or time of day.

Your options today:

Take over from the Help Desk queue.
Auto-assignment in the Help Desk side menu (balanced or round-robin). It gives a waiting conversation to an agent when they resolve one, and it assigns conversations a teammate escalates from Chat History.

Context handoff

When a teammate opens an escalated conversation, they see the full transcript and the customer's contact details, if captured.

The reason the AI gave for handing off goes into the owner's notification and the webhook payload. No internal note or tag is added automatically.

Webhook on escalation

Subscribe to conversation.escalated. When the AI hands off, the payload looks like this:

{
  "event": "conversation.escalated",
  "timestamp": "2026-10-10T10:30:00",
  "data": {
    "conversation_id": "conv_xxx",
    "reason": "Customer asked to speak to someone about a refund"
  }
}

When the visitor clicks Talk to a human, data carries conversation_id, channel_type, session_id, message_count and "source": "widget". When an automation rule escalates, it carries escalated_by, rule_id and rule_name. See the webhooks reference.

Handing back to the AI

When the teammate is done:

Resume AI. The teammate who took over clicks it in the "AI paused" banner. The AI answers from the customer's next message.
Resolve. Ends the session and turns the AI back on.

Resolving is recorded in the conversation's activity log.

Limits

AI pause. Lasts until a teammate resumes the AI or resolves the conversation. It never times out.
Widget wait. A visitor who clicked Talk to a human waits up to 2 minutes for a teammate.
Plans. Live chat and the escalate_to_human skill need Growth or above.

Common pitfalls

Escalations nobody sees. Nobody had the Help Desk open, and nothing pages your team. Add a webhook alert.

The visitor clicked Talk to a human and nothing alerted the inbox. Button clicks show up on the next inbox refresh, without a sound.

The AI offered a form instead of a person. Live chat is off, or nobody was reachable. See escalate_to_human.

FAQ

Does the customer see "the bot paused"?

When the AI hands off, it tells them a teammate will join. After that, new messages get no AI reply until a teammate answers.

Can the bot keep helping after escalation?

Not while it is paused. It answers again after Resume AI or Resolve.

Will the conversation revert if the human doesn't respond?

Only in the widget's Talk to a human wait, after 2 minutes. A paused conversation stays paused.

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