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AI customer service software that works inside your help desk

AI agents answer chats and emails from your knowledge base, sort your queue and hand over to a person when they should. You pay only your own AI provider, such as OpenAI or Anthropic: LiveAgent adds no AI fees.

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4.5/5 G2 (1,538) 4.7/5 Capterra (1,789) checked Nov 1, 2026

More than 7,000 businesses use LiveAgent, made by Quality Unit since 2004.

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What the AI does

AI customer service agents: chat, ticket, voice and reply drafts

Written by Andrej Harsani, Co-founder, Quality Unit Updated

AI customer service software answers and sorts customer questions with AI models, so your team spends its time on the ones that need a person. LiveAgent is help desk software for small and growing support teams, used by 7,000+ businesses. Its AI comes in four parts that work in the same inbox as your agents: chat AI agents, ticket AI agents, voice AI agents and AI Answer Assistant. An AI agent answers customers on its own; an AI assistant, such as AI Answer Assistant, drafts replies that a person checks and sends. LiveAgent charges no AI fee, per resolution or per conversation: you connect OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini or FlowHunt (a no-code platform for AI agents) and pay that provider directly; where your data is stored is on the GDPR page, and which companies process it is listed with LiveAgent’s subprocessors. Plans and their prices are on the pricing page.

  • Live chat Chat AI agent

    Answers from your knowledge base and past tickets, hands the chat to a person with the conversation so far, and ends it when the question is solved.

  • Email, forms, WhatsApp, Instagram Ticket AI agent

    Replies, adds an internal note, tags, assigns or transfers the ticket, resolves it, marks spam and fills in ticket fields.

  • Phone calls Voice AI agent

    Answers calls with OpenAI’s realtime voice models and can use the tools you connect, such as a booking system. AI in the call center

  • Your agents' reply box AI Answer Assistant

    Writes a reply from the whole ticket and your knowledge base, or improves your agent’s draft. The agent checks it before sending.

Who does itWhat
The AI aloneAnswers from your knowledge base and past tickets, asks for missing details, tags and routes tickets, closes spam
The AI drafts, a person sendsReplies written by AI Answer Assistant, which your agent checks before sending
A person onlyRefunds, exceptions, complaints and anything your instructions send to a person

The AI answers from your knowledge base and your past tickets, and with Shopify’s MCP server connected an AI agent can also look up an order’s status before it answers. AI tools your team already uses, such as Claude Desktop, can also work on your tickets through LiveAgent’s MCP server, with the same permissions as your agents.

  • AI fee from LiveAgent $0

    You pay only your own AI provider, at its list prices.

  • Median AI chat $0.11

    in LiveAgent’s own support, October 2026.

  • AI chats a month 1,199

    answered first by our AI agent on LiveAgent’s websites, October 2026.

Answering first

The AI answers new chats and emails first

An AI agent answers new chats and tickets from your knowledge base and past tickets as soon as they arrive. When a request lacks something it needs, such as an order number, it asks the customer for it first and answers once it is there.
  • Works in live chat, email, contact forms, WhatsApp and Instagram
  • Answers at any hour, also when nobody on your team is online
  • Looks up order status in Shopify through its MCP server, when you connect it
  • Leaves the ticket open for your team when it cannot answer

How the AI autoresponder works

Handover

A person takes over with the whole conversation

When a question needs a person, or the customer asks for one, the AI passes the chat to an agent with the conversation so far, so the customer does not repeat anything. Your instructions decide what always goes to a person.
  • The agent sees everything the AI said
  • Cancellations, exceptions and complaints can always go to a person
  • The customer can ask for a person at any time

How human handover works

Reply drafts

AI drafts the reply, your agent sends it

AI Answer Assistant writes a reply from the whole ticket and your knowledge base, or improves your agent’s own draft. The agent reviews every reply before it is sent.
  • Shortens, extends or polishes your agent's own text
  • Changes the tone of a reply
  • Nothing reaches the customer without your agent

How AI Answer Assistant works

Answer assistant Illustration

Hi Hannah, yes, the Oslo sofa comes in sage green. Delivery takes 2 to 3 weeks, and we call you the day before to agree on a time.

Improve Extend Simplify Tone
Back Forward Try again Use in answer

Sorting the queue

Support automation: every ticket arrives tagged, routed or closed as spam

A ticket AI agent reads each new ticket, tags it, sends it to the right department, and closes spam and sales pitches before an agent opens them.
  • Every ticket gets its category, so your reports stay complete
  • Each department sees only its own tickets
  • Agents never open spam or sales pitches

How AI triage works

Also included: the self-learning loop turns solved tickets into knowledge base articles, so the AI can answer more on its own, and AI ticket summaries and AI agents per department keep long tickets and busy queues manageable.

Results

What AI does in LiveAgent's own support

LiveAgent’s support team answers LiveAgent’s customers in LiveAgent, with LiveAgent’s AI. This is what the AI did in October 2026:
  • 4,713 tickets sorted

    into categories by a ticket AI agent in LiveAgent’s own support in October 2026, at about $0.02 a ticket.

  • 3,700 emails

    checked for spam by an AI agent in LiveAgent’s own support in October 2026, before an agent saw them.

  • $327 for the month

    for all AI chats in LiveAgent’s own support in October 2026, paid to the AI provider, with no AI fee from LiveAgent.

  • 1,169 chats answered by people

    by LiveAgent’s agents in October 2026, from LiveAgent’s agent report.

How we measured: FlowHunt’s transactions for LiveAgent’s website chat, October 1–31, 2026, where one chat is one FlowHunt conversation, and LiveAgent’s agent report for the same month. The two chat counts overlap: a chat the AI answers first and then hands to a person counts in both. FlowHunt bills in its own credits, about $1 each; LiveAgent bills nothing for AI. The median AI chat cost $0.11; the average is $0.27 because long chats outside working hours cost more, and our newest chat flow costs a median of $0.04.

We implemented an AI chatbot to efficiently manage and filter customer requests, ensuring faster, more focused support that continuously evolves with the needs of LiveAgent’s customers.

— Jozef Stofira, Head of Customer Support at LiveAgent

How the team set it up, step by step: how LiveAgent’s support team rolled out AI.

Cost

What AI costs in LiveAgent

LiveAgent adds no AI fee on top of its plans: no fee per resolution, per conversation or per AI agent. You connect your own AI provider and pay it for the tokens its model reads and writes, at its list prices. A provider account takes a few minutes: you sign up at OpenAI or Anthropic, add a card, and they bill you for what the AI uses; LiveAgent’s support team can set it up with you for free.
  • 300 AI chats a month ≈ $33–$81

    to your AI provider: the first at the median cost of an AI chat in LiveAgent’s own support, the second at the average. LiveAgent adds nothing.

  • Monthly AI budget You set it

    When it runs out, the AI stops: chats go to your agents and tickets wait in your queue.

The cost depends on the model you choose, how often the AI agent searches your knowledge base and the length of the chat. The model matters most, as the providers’ list prices per million tokens show:

ModelReads (input)Writes (output)
Claude Haiku 5.5 (Anthropic)$0.10$0.50
GPT-5.4 mini (OpenAI)$0.75$4.50
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Anthropic)$2$10

List prices from Anthropic and OpenAI on November 3, 2026. Your provider’s usage page shows what each chat cost. A voice AI agent runs on OpenAI’s realtime models: a 3-minute call costs about $0.054–$0.32 on the mini model (our estimate from OpenAI’s list prices). Every plan includes AI agents, also during the 30-day trial; plans and how many AI agents each includes are on the pricing page.

Try it on your own chats: start a free trial, and your AI provider bills you directly.

Setup

How to set up AI customer support in LiveAgent

Connect your AI provider account, create the AI agent with its instructions and the tools it may use, then give it a monthly budget and the departments or chat buttons where it works. Start with one department and the questions your team answers every day, and read the handover queue daily in the first week: it shows what to change. Every setting is in the walkthrough setting up an AI customer service agent in LiveAgent.

Prefer not to do it yourself? LiveAgent’s support team sets everything up for you for free, on every plan and during the trial: your chat and email AI agents and the connection to your AI provider account. Moving from another help desk? The team also moves your tickets for you.

Limits

What the AI should never decide alone

What decides whether AI support works is what the AI can see, and where you draw the line:

BusinessWhat the AI needs to seeWhat goes to a person
Online shopOrder status from Shopify, help articles on shipping and returnsRefunds, and exceptions to your returns policy
Software and appsProduct docs, the customer’s plan and usageBilling disputes and contract terms
Clinics and healthcare officesAppointments and billingAny medical question, without exception

LiveAgent’s chat and ticket AI agents cannot issue refunds or change orders: they have no tool for it. They collect the order number and the reason and hand the customer to a person. Write the line into each AI agent’s instructions, and give it only the tools its job needs.

LiveAgent is not the right fit if:

  • You want AI without an account at an AI provider. LiveAgent’s AI runs on your own AI provider account; our support team sets it up with you for free.
  • You want the AI to answer from your website pages and PDFs without FlowHunt. With OpenAI or Anthropic, LiveAgent’s AI agents answer from your knowledge base and past tickets; other websites and documents need a FlowHunt flow.

Try LiveAgent's AI on your own tickets

Connect your support email and website chat, add your AI provider, and let an AI agent answer real questions for 30 days. No credit card, no setup fee, no AI fees from LiveAgent.

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