Live chat lets visitors on your website talk to your team in real time, through the same IntelliDesk widget you may already use as a contact form. Every chat is also a ticket, so nothing gets lost and your reports include it.
How it works in one paragraph
When chat is on for a desk and at least one agent is online, the widget on your site shows two tabs under its header: Chat and Send a request. If you've connected AI, the chat answers first using your knowledge base; the visitor can ask for a person at any time, or switch to Send a request for the normal contact form. Agents answer in the Live Chat console. When nobody is online, new visitors quietly get the contact form instead — they're never left talking to an empty room — but someone who already has a conversation always gets their chat back. (A desk set to AI only works differently: see Who answers chats below.)
Step 1 — Put the widget on your site
Chat uses the standard IntelliDesk widget — if it's already on your site, there's nothing new to install. If not, see The embeddable widget: putting a contact form on your site.
Step 2 — Turn chat on for the desk
A desk manager goes to Settings → Help Desks → your desk → Settings tab and switches on Live chat.
Turning it off again brings the contact form straight back.
Who answers chats
Once Live chat is on, choose Who answers chats:
- AI, then your team (the default): the AI answers from your help articles and brings in an agent who's online when it can't. Chat is offered only while someone is online (Step 3).
- AI only: chat is always on, even when nobody is online. Anything the AI can't answer, or a visitor's request for a person, becomes a normal support ticket in your inbox: the visitor is told "This is now support ticket HD-…" and your team replies from the inbox as usual. Nobody is asked to staff the Live Chat console.
AI only needs an AI key under Settings → AI. Without one, the AI can't answer anything, so every chat goes straight to a ticket (the setting shows a warning).
Step 3 — Go online
At the top of the Live Chat console is your status: Online, Away or Offline (the same control is also in the desk's settings).
- Everyone starts Offline — agents have to choose to go online.
- You can only set your own status.
- New visitors are offered chat only while at least one agent is Online and has room for another conversation. Each agent handles up to 3 chats at once; when every online agent is full, new visitors see the contact form instead. (This doesn't apply to AI only desks.)
What visitors see: Chat and Send a request
With chat on, the widget has two tabs under its header:
- Chat — the live conversation, with the AI (if connected) and your team.
- Send a request — the normal request form: name, email, subject, description, type and attachments.
Visitors can switch between the tabs at any time, and the chat keeps running in the background while they're on the form. If they switch away from a half-written request, they're asked before it's discarded. With chat off, the widget is just the form, as before.
Answering chats: the Live Chat console
Open Live Chat in the sidebar. Everything happens on one screen:
- On the left — your chats. Waiting holds chats that need a person, with how long each visitor has waited (it turns red after a minute); click Pick up to take one. If a colleague got there first, you'll be told. Your chats lists the ones you're handling — those waiting on your reply come first, with a coloured dot and a timer, and the header shows how many need you. Alt + ↑/↓ moves between chats.
- In the middle — the conversation. The whole chat, including what the AI already said. The reply box is always open: Enter sends, Shift + Enter starts a new line. Switch to Internal note for something only your team sees, insert a Template, or click Suggest reply for a short, chat-sized draft from your knowledge base that you can edit before sending.
- On the right — who you're talking to. The visitor's company, the page they're on, and their previous conversations.
You see "… is typing" when the visitor is writing, and they see "Sam is typing" (your first name) while you are.
At the top of each chat:
- Return to AI — hand it back if it's something the knowledge base can answer.
- Move to ticket — see below.
- End chat — the visitor is told you ended it, and can rate it.
Because every chat is a ticket, you can also open it as a normal ticket (the arrow icon), with your usual tools.
When it will take longer: Move to ticket
Some questions take hours or days, not minutes. Move to ticket carries the conversation on as a normal ticket:
- It leaves your live chats and stays in the inbox, assigned to you, with the same number, history and SLA.
- The visitor is told the ticket number and how they'll hear back: by email if they've given an address (the widget asks for one if not), or in the chat if they come back to it.
- Anything they write later arrives as a customer reply on the ticket, and you're notified.
- Your replies reach them in the chat if they're on the page, and by email if they've left.
How chats end, and pick up again
- The visitor ends a chat with the ✕ End chat button just above the message box. They're asked End this chat? and choose End chat or Keep chatting, so a stray tap doesn't cut them off. After ending, they can rate the chat. Ratings go into your CSAT report.
- You end it with End chat in the console — or by closing the ticket from the inbox; either way the visitor sees that the chat has ended. Chats aren't sent the satisfaction survey email: the widget asks for a rating instead.
- Picking up again: after a chat ends, the visitor can choose Continue this chat — writing again reopens the same conversation, and the AI answers first as with a new chat — or Start a new chat. The widget remembers their recent chats, so they can go back to an older one from its start screen.
When someone asks for a person
On an AI, then your team desk, a chat is escalated when the visitor clicks Talk to a person, or when the AI can't answer. IntelliDesk then works to get it picked up:
- Immediately — every available agent gets an in-app notification and a push notification.
- After 30 seconds — if it's still waiting and you've connected Slack, an alert goes to Slack.
- After 60 seconds — if there's genuinely nobody online, the visitor is told no one is available right now, and the conversation stays open as a normal ticket in your inbox for the team to pick up. (If agents are online but busy, the visitor simply keeps waiting — they're told a person is coming, not that nobody is there.)
Managers also get an alert if chat is switched on but nobody is online, so a desk isn't silently advertising chat it can't staff.
On an AI only desk there's no waiting queue: the chat becomes a support ticket straight away and is auto-assigned like any other ticket.
AI answers (optional)
If your workspace has AI connected (Settings → AI), chat can answer common questions on its own:
- It answers only from your knowledge base (and the desk's Notes for the AI assistant, below), and checks that an article actually covers the question before replying. If nothing fits, it hands over to a person rather than guessing.
- Every AI reply is labelled as the AI assistant, so visitors know who they're talking to.
- Chats the AI fully resolves don't clutter your inbox or counts.
- There are limits per conversation and per day so costs stay predictable.
With no AI connected, every chat goes straight to your team. The better your knowledge base, the more the AI can handle — see Settings → Knowledge Base.
How it finds the right article
Before searching, the AI rewrites the visitor's question: it fixes spelling, splits or expands words (such as helpdesk → help desk), and adds the words an article would likely use. It then searches article titles and text for each version, plus a meaning-based search over article sections, and merges the results. So typos and different wording no longer stop it finding the right article. New or edited articles are picked up by the meaning-based search within about 10 minutes.
Before answering, Jev scores how relevant each article it found is, and only the relevant ones (at most 3, plus your notes) are used, best first. After the AI writes an answer, and before the visitor sees it, Jev checks that every factual claim (steps, setting names, prices, times, policies) is backed by the articles or your notes, and that it answers what was asked. If it isn't, the answer isn't sent and the chat is handed to your team, with a hand-off note saying why. The fix is usually an article that states the missing detail.
The AI repeats what your articles say, so keep them accurate: a wrong article gives a confidently wrong answer.
To set the AI's tone, describe your business, and list topics that should always go to a person, use the workspace AI profile under Settings → AI, card How the AI talks about your business. It applies to every desk. See Setting up AI: your own key, the platform AI and what each feature needs.
Notes for the AI assistant
In the desk's Live chat section (under Settings → Help Desks → your desk, visible when live chat is on) there's a Notes for the AI assistant box, up to 2,000 characters. Click Save notes to keep them. Use it for standing facts and preferred wording, for example:
- A desk is the same as a help desk. Each desk can have its own mailbox.
- Never quote delivery times for Zimbabwe; say a person will confirm.
The AI treats these notes as trusted material alongside your help articles, for live chat answers and AI-written acknowledgement emails. It still answers only from the notes and the articles. Only the desk's managers can edit the notes, and saved changes are recorded in the Audit Log.
The hand-off note
When the AI hands a chat to your team because it couldn't answer, the ticket gets an internal note starting AI hand-off:. It shows the visitor's question, what the AI searched for, which articles it considered, and why none of them answered (for example they don't cover it or it needs a person). If none of your articles should have answered it, that's a gap worth a help article or a line in the desk's Notes for the AI assistant. See Why didn't the AI answer my visitor's chat?
Who is the visitor?
Visitors don't have to sign in. A chat starts with an anonymous contact; if the visitor shares their email address in the conversation, the chat is linked to their contact record, so you see their history.
Tips
- Agree coverage hours and have someone go Online for them — chat only appears when you're there, so it's safe to leave switched on. If you can't staff chat at all, consider AI only.
- Write knowledge base articles for your most common questions before turning AI answers on.
- Read the AI hand-off: notes now and then: they show you which articles are missing.
- Use Move to ticket as soon as something clearly won't be solved in the chat — the visitor knows where it stands and you're not holding a live chat open for days.