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Email

The Email channel lets people chat with an agent by email. They write to the Gmail or Outlook (Microsoft 365) mailbox connected to that agent, and the agent replies in the same thread.

What the agent can do

Section titled “What the agent can do”

Once Email is connected, the agent can:

  • Answer emails sent to its mailbox.
  • Keep each thread as one conversation — every email thread maps to a single conversation, and replies stay in that thread.
  • Reply-all when the sender is verified — if the sender’s email passes authentication (DMARC), the reply goes to everyone on the thread, up to 20 recipients. If it doesn’t, the reply goes only to the sender.
  • Skip mail that isn’t for it — newsletters, auto-replies, and the mailbox’s own mail are ignored.

Each agent has one mailbox, and a mailbox can only be used by one agent. Like other channels, the agent handles email with the same memory and abilities it has everywhere else.

Who can email the agent

Section titled “Who can email the agent”

The agent’s Members access decides who may email it. People with chat access can email the agent. If you grant chat access to anyone, anyone can email it.

A sender is recognised as an existing person only when their email passes the provider’s DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) checks. On top of that:

  • Outlook also recognises internal mail from the same organisation.
  • Gmail doesn’t currently recognise mail from the same domain as a verified person. That mail falls back to the agent’s public access.

Connecting

Section titled “Connecting”
  1. On app.alfe.ai, open the agent and go to its Channels tab.
  2. Select Add new channel, then Email.
  3. Choose one of the agent’s own connected Google or Microsoft accounts.

The connection needs mail permissions. If it doesn’t have them, reconnect the account and grant mail access. If the agent later loses access to the mailbox, the channel shows an error with a Reconnect button.

Section titled “Related”
  • Channels — every messaging platform an agent can talk on.
  • Google Workspace — connect the Google account that provides the agent’s Gmail mailbox.