New Channel Management Experience

Channel Management changes how AI bots are assigned to your conversation channels. Instead

of relying on a single "Primary Bot," any bot can now be assigned directly to specific

channels and respond independently.

What's new

• No more "Primary Bot" requirement. Bots are assigned directly to channels (SMS,

Email, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Live Chat, Web Chat).

• Granular routing. Route by channel, by specific account/number, and by contact tags —

for example, send VIP-tagged contacts to one bot and everyone else to another.

• Specificity wins. A more targeted assignment takes priority over a broader one (e.g.

"Facebook + VIP tag" overrides a general "Facebook" assignment).

• No duplicate assignments. Two bots can't share the exact same channel + identifier +

tag configuration.

How to turn it on

1. Open Labs at the sub-account level.
2. Enable the flag named "Conversations AI Channel Management".
3. Wait about 5 minutes for your existing setup to migrate before testing.

Migration runs automatically once the flag is on — you don't need to recreate your bots.

What happens to your existing bots (migration)

• Your current Primary Bot is preserved. During migration it's automatically assigned

to the channels it already supports, so it keeps responding exactly as before.

• Bots that were not the Primary Bot keep their settings, but you assign them to

channels using the new channel assignment controls.

• Bot assigned directly to a contact still takes top priority — regardless of channel.

Previously, if a bot was assigned to a contact but had that channel disabled, it wouldn't

reply. Now that per-bot supported channels are deprecated, an assigned bot will reply as

long as it's in autopilot mode, while still honoring all other settings (such as sleep

time).

The "first bot is primary" concept is gone

Previously, the first bot you created for a sub-account was automatically made the

location's Primary Bot. That concept is deprecated — there's no automatic primary

anymore. To get a bot to reply, you simply enable the channels you want it to handle.

Facebook & Instagram with multiple accounts

• Each connected Facebook Page or Instagram account is treated as a separate channel

identifier.

• After migration, your existing bot responds across all connected Facebook/Instagram

accounts by default.

• To route them separately, assign a specific bot to a specific Page/account — each

connected account can be handled by a different bot.

Snapshots

What happens to a loaded snapshot depends on when the original bots were set up:

• Snapshot from an older setup (before Channel Management): the bot that was the Primary

Bot keeps responding automatically — it's assigned its supported channels for you on the

first incoming message, no manual setup needed.

• Snapshot from a Channel Management setup: loaded bots come in without channel

assignments. Assign each bot to the channels you want it to handle before it will

respond.

• Either way, review each loaded bot's channel assignments before going live to confirm

they match how you want conversations routed.

Tags and segmentation

• Assignments can include include and exclude tag filters.
• Two bots can share the same channel as long as their tag filters differ — this is how you

split traffic (for example, VIPs to one bot, everyone else to another).

Workflows and transfers

• The "Update Conversation AI Bot and Status" workflow action is still supported and is

now channel-agnostic — the workflow-assigned bot responds for that contact across any

channel, without a separate channel assignment.

• Transfer Bot continues to work. A transferred bot can respond to the contact even

without a pre-set channel assignment for that conversation.

• Sleep / pause behavior is preserved — a manual reply pauses the assigned bot for its

configured duration (when enabled), no matter which bot is handling the contact.

IMPORTANT: When this feature is enabled, any agent assigned using Update Conversation AI Bot and Status, that agent will respond on all channels. The previous Supported Channels configuration has been deprecated and is no longer used to determine where an agent responds.

Not supported yet

• Public API is not supported for managing channel assignments — please use the in-app

Channel Management controls.

Need help

If a bot isn't responding as expected after enabling the flag, confirm the bot is assigned

to the correct channel (and account, for Facebook/Instagram) and that its tag filters match

the contact.