- Programmable Chat: Autopilot now directly supports Programmable Chat, allowing you to build chatbots for your website or mobile app, or deploy Assistants you’ve already built to Programmable Chat with just a few clicks — existing logic and configuration will work in Chat conversations with zero code changes.
- Autopilot Studio Widget: A new Studio Widget that allows you to directly add Autopilot Assistants to your Studio flows. It also makes handing off messaging interactions from your bot to an agent a lot simpler.
The popularity of chat as a customer support channel has exploded as customers are increasingly interacting with businesses using web and mobile apps and messaging channels like SMS, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The asynchronous and informal nature of chat has a lot of advantages for customers and businesses. It delivers a better experience to customers by making it easy to contact support. It allows businesses to more efficiently serve customers at scale because a single agent can serve multiple customers over chat. But chat tends to drive higher support volumes, making automation critical to achieving a balance between customer experience and agent efficiency.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce two new features that make it easy to build Chatbots with Autopilot — direct support for Programmable Chat in Autopilot and a new Autopilot Studio Widget!
Programmable Chat
Autopilot now supports Programmable Chat, making it the fifth messaging channel you can directly use with Autopilot. This feature allows you to easily add an Autopilot Assistant to a Programmable Chat channel to handle conversations with your users. It works seamlessly with Programmable Chat SDKs for Android, iOS and JavaScript, allowing you to build and deploy chatbots on any platform your customers interact with you. Autopilot’s omni-channel capabilities also ensure that existing Assistants can work on Programmable Chat without any code changes.
Configuring Autopilot with Programmable Chat is easy. All you need to do is follow these steps:
- Go to the Channels page in the Assistant navigation menu in the console.
- Select Programmable Chat.
- Copy the Chat URL automatically generated for your Assistant. This URL is unique to each Assistant.
- Conversations in Programmable Chat take place within channels. The Programmable Chat API allows you to set a webhook on each channel to be notified of new activity within the channel. Configure the Chat URL copied in step 3 as the webhook URL on the channels you want your bot to join.
POST /Services/ISXXX/Channels/CHXXX/Webhooks/
request parameters
Attribute | Value |
Type | webhook |
Configuration.Url | {Your Autopilot Programmable Chat URL} |
Configuration.Method | POST |
Configuration.Filters | onMessageSent |
Example API Request
curl -X POST 'https://chat.twilio.com/v2/Services/{ChatServiceSid}/Channels/{ChannelSid}/Webhooks/' \ -d "Type=webhook" \ -d "Configuration.Url={ProgrammableChatURL}" \ -d "Configuration.Method=POST" \ -d "Configuration.Filters=onMessageSent" \ -u {AccountSid}:{token}
Make sure to replace:
{ChatServiceSid} - with the Chat Service Instance Sid you are using
{ChannelSid} - with the Channel you created for the user
{AccountSid} - with the Account Sid
{Assistant Sid} - with the Autopilot Assistant Sid
{ProgrammableChatURL} - with your Assistant's Programmable Chat URL (Channels -> Programmable Chat in Console)
You can also learn more about configuring Programmable Chat in the documentation, and use this guide for step-by-step instructions on building a chatbot with Autopilot.
Autopilot Studio Widget
The Autopilot Studio Widget lets you create Studio Flows that use an Assistant to handle incoming phone calls and messages received over SMS, Programmable Chat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, allowing you to replace keyword response logic with natural language understanding.
All you need to do is drop the widget into the Studio canvas and configure it with the Autopilot Assistant of your choice. If you’re using it to handle messaging interactions, you may also need to change the default messaging and chat config depending on your implementation. Learn more about configuring and using the widget.
In addition to using it to add Autopilot to Studio Flows, the widget is also the recommended way to build agent hand-off to Flex (or any other customer service platform) for messaging interactions. Use this guide for step-by-step instructions on building agent hand-off using the Autopilot Studio Widget.
Get Started
Keep these resources handy when you start. We can’t wait to see what you build!
- Setting up your Assistant with Programmable Chat.
- Guide: How to Build a Chatbot with Autopilot.
- Guide: How to Build Agent Hand-off to Flex.
- Autopilot Studio Widget documentation.
Check out the Autopilot docs for more details on building with Autopilot.