Create guardrails for Customer Agent on email channels

HubSpot Ideas
1

Hey!
Context
HubSpot’s Customer Agent works well in live chat, but when deployed on email channels the stakes are higher. Email replies are often more formal, more binding, and in some industries (like banking and finance) a wrong or imprecise answer can have legal consequences. Because of this, we cannot allow the Customer Agent to automatically answer every incoming email.

Problem
Today, when the Customer Agent is enabled for email, it can respond automatically to all messages that meet its confidence threshold. However, this creates risk in cases where:

  • The inquiry is legally sensitive,
  • The customer’s request requires manual investigation,
  • The reply could be interpreted as a binding statement,
  • Or internal policy requires a human approval step.

Without guardrails, we cannot safely use the Customer Agent on email.

Proposed Feature: Guardrails & Human-in-the-Loop Workflow
We would like a way to control which types of emails the Customer Agent is allowed to answer automatically — and which ones should require human review and approval before sending.

Key components could include:

  1. Content-based Guardrails
    Allow admins to create rules (keywords, categories, sender-address, intent types) that determine when:

    • Customer Agent may auto-send a response
    • Customer Agent may draft but must wait for approval
    • Customer Agent should not respond at all

  2. Approval Queue / Human-in-the-Loop
    If an email falls into a higher-risk category, Customer Agent should generate a draft and place it in a review queue for a human to approve, edit, or reject before sending.

  3. Confidence Threshold Settings per Channel
    Ability to set a stricter confidence threshold for email than for chat.

Impact
These controls would allow regulated industries (like banks, insurance companies, healthcare, or legal services) to safely use Customer Agent in email channels without risking compliance breaches or legally binding miscommunication.
This would significantly increase adoption and trust in Customer Agent across enterprise and compliance-focused teams.
Regards, Marte

2

Hello!

I’m happy to share we are creating more control for when Customer Agent responds to emails. We are starting with Targeting specific users based on Segments (known as CRM Lists). We’d love to connect with customers on how Customer Agent can work for you in email. If you’d like to chat please book some time with me using this link: https://www.hubspot.com/meetings/jdaly5

Some other options we’d added for more control over Email you can use today:

1. Working Hours - Configure customer agent to respond after working hours and weekends, or specific times of the working day

2. Conversation Coverage - Start small with customer agent responding to email by configuring a small percentage of conversations routing to Customer Agent.

We are also exploring Topic-based handoffs - definitions of certain topics customer agent should hand off to a human. If this sounds like a need for you, please book some time to chat!