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Suggested responses let you ask the Customer Agent for a draft reply to the latest customer message on a thread, using your knowledge sources and the full thread context.
Suggested responses in Plain

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How it works

When suggested responses are on, the Customer Agent appears in the thread dock, the bar at the bottom of a thread with Reply and Add note. To get a suggestion:
  1. Press Y or click the Customer Agent in the thread dock. The panel shows Get a suggested reply to the latest customer message.
  2. Click Suggest AI response, or press Y again. The panel shows Writing a suggestion… while the Customer Agent drafts a reply.
  3. Review the suggestion. Click Edit (or press Y) to move it into the composer, or click Send or Send & done to send it as it is.
If there are several suggestions, press ← and → to move between them. Once a suggestion exists, the suggested responses icon in the composer toolbar also shows or hides it. The more knowledge sources you connect, the better suggestions become. This is especially effective for teams handling technical, policy heavy, or product specific questions where accuracy matters. If the Customer Agent has nothing useful to say, for example because the customer only said thanks or the thread needs a human, the panel shows No suggestion for this message. The Customer Agent then leaves the thread dock until the customer sends a new message. If no suggestion arrives within 60s, the panel shows Couldn’t get a suggestion. Click Try again to ask again. Asking for a suggestion isn’t available in the mobile layout.

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Enabling suggested responses

  1. Go to Settings → Suggested responses. The page is in the Workflow group.
  2. Turn on Suggested responses
Once enabled, the Customer Agent appears in the thread dock.

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Make suggestions smarter with knowledge sources

To provide deeper and more accurate suggestions, connect your support documentation. Plain indexes it and use it alongside past conversations to generate better replies. This matters most for B2B teams handling technical, policy-heavy, or product-specific questions. See knowledge sources to get started. You can rate any suggested response with a thumbs up or thumbs down in the suggestion panel. You can also leave an optional comment explaining why the suggestion was or wasn’t helpful. This feedback is used to improve future suggestions.

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Bring your own suggestions

If you generate replies elsewhere, for example with your own model or an internal knowledge base, you can push them into Plain with the addGeneratedReply API mutation. They appear in the thread dock without anyone asking for them, and the customer sees nothing until a user sends the reply. Your suggestions show even when Suggested responses is off, and take precedence over the Customer Agent’s. Once your agent has suggested a reply to a message, users can’t ask the Customer Agent for one on that message. Your API key needs the generatedReply:create permission. See suggested replies in our API docs.