AI agent
AI email inbox agent
An AI agent that answers genuine enquiries in your Microsoft 365 inbox and holds the sensitive ones for you.
Overview
How it works
Your inbox fills up while you're on a job, with a customer, or asleep. The AI email inbox agent checks one Microsoft 365 mailbox every 2 minutes. It replies in the same thread to genuine enquiries, using only answers you've approved, so people hear back while their question is still fresh.
It knows when to step back. Messages about pricing, refunds, complaints, contracts, invoices or anything urgent get a short, honest acknowledgment, and the full reply waits as a draft for a person. You read it, edit it if you like, and send it from your dashboard.
It stays out of the way of everything else. No-reply senders, newsletters, auto-replies and your own team's email are skipped. Each sender gets at most 3 automatic replies a day. Every message stays unread, so your inbox still looks the way you expect, with a tag showing what the agent did.
We connect it through Microsoft Graph with access limited to the one mailbox you choose. Your mailbox, your account and your data stay yours.
What it looks like
A typical walkthrough
For example, here's a typical day for a landscaping company that uses the agent on its main enquiries inbox.
An enquiry arrives at 6:40 in the morning
A homeowner emails asking whether the company does spring cleanups in their area. Within a few minutes the agent replies in the same thread, confirms the service from the approved list, and asks for the property address and a good time to talk.
The message is tagged, not hidden
In Outlook, the original email is still unread and now carries an "AI replied" tag. The owner sees it over coffee and knows the customer already has an answer.
A price question is held for a person
Another sender asks what a weekly mowing plan costs. The word "price" matches an escalation keyword. The sender gets a short note that a member of the team will reply personally, and a full draft waits in the dashboard tagged "AI: needs you".
The noise is left alone
A supplier newsletter, a delivery notification from a no-reply address and an out-of-office reply all land in the inbox. The agent skips each one and sends nothing.
A chatty sender hits the daily cap
A customer sends a fourth quick question the same afternoon. The agent has already replied 3 times today, so it leaves this one for the team instead of keeping a loop going.
You clear the held drafts
At lunch, the owner opens the dashboard, edits the pricing draft to add a site-visit offer, and sends it. Discarded drafts go nowhere.
Under the hood
How our system does it
Connected through Microsoft Graph
We register a dedicated app in your Microsoft Entra admin center with permission to read and send mail, then grant admin consent. An Exchange application access policy limits that app to the single mailbox you choose, so it can't open anyone else's email.
Checks unread mail every 2 minutes
On a fixed schedule, the agent asks Microsoft for a small batch of unread messages in that inbox, including the headers it needs to recognize automated mail. Each message is recorded once it's handled, so nothing is answered twice.
Filters before it writes a word
Senders like no-reply, mailer-daemon, postmaster, notifications and bounce addresses are skipped. So are messages marked as auto-submitted, anything with mailing-list or bulk headers, your own internal domains, and messages it has already tagged.
Answers from approved knowledge
Genuine enquiries go to Claude, Anthropic's AI model, with your approved business knowledge and the sender's message. It answers only from that knowledge. When something isn't covered, or the question needs a commitment, it says a person will reply.
Escalation keywords hold the reply
You choose a list of words such as refund, legal, complaint, cancel, urgent, price, quote, contract and invoice. A match means the agent sends only a short acknowledgment and saves its proposed reply as a draft for a person to approve, edit or discard.
Replies in-thread and tags the message
Replies go through Microsoft's own reply function, so they sit in the same conversation and are saved in Sent Items. The original is tagged "AI replied" or "AI: needs you" and left unread.
A per-sender daily cap
The agent counts its replies to each address over the last 24 hours. Once a sender reaches the cap, 3 by default, further messages are skipped and left for your team.
Honest about what happened
If Microsoft rejects a request, the agent records the failure instead of reporting a sent reply. The dashboard shows what was replied, what was held and what was skipped, with the reason.
Works with
What it does
What it does
Watches one mailbox
It checks the single Microsoft 365 inbox you choose every 2 minutes. Other mailboxes are out of its reach.
Replies in the same thread
Answers land in the customer's existing conversation, so the history stays together on both sides.
Answers from your approved knowledge
It uses the services, hours, service area and policies you've signed off on. It never quotes prices unless you've approved the wording.
Holds sensitive messages for a person
Escalation keywords trigger a short acknowledgment and a saved draft, so you decide what's said about money, complaints or contracts.
Tags what it did
Each handled message gets an Outlook category, such as "AI replied" or "AI: needs you", so you can sort and search by it.
Leaves messages unread
You still see every email as new. The agent adds a reply and a tag, and changes nothing else.
Skips automated and internal mail
No-reply senders, newsletters, mailing lists, auto-replies and your own domains get no response.
Caps replies per sender
No one gets more than 3 automatic replies a day, which prevents loops with other automated systems.
What it can do for you
Why it helps
Faster first replies
People who email outside your working hours get a useful answer in minutes instead of waiting until you're back.
Less time on repeat questions
Questions about services, hours and service area are handled from approved answers, so your time goes to the messages that need you.
Fewer awkward mistakes
Anything about money, complaints or contracts waits for a person, so the agent never commits you to something you didn't approve.
A clearer inbox
Tags show at a glance what's been answered and what's waiting on you, without hiding anything.
A record of every conversation
Each reply, hold and skip is logged with the reason, so you can see exactly what was sent on your behalf.
What you control
Your rules, your approvals
- Which mailbox the agent can access
- Whether replies send automatically or every reply waits for approval
- The escalation keyword list
- The daily reply cap per sender
- Which internal domains are always skipped
- The approved knowledge it answers from
- Approving, editing or discarding every held draft
Who it's for
Is this a good fit?
- Owners whose main enquiries arrive by email in Microsoft 365 or Outlook
- Small teams who can't watch the inbox all day but want people answered quickly
- Businesses that get the same questions about services, hours and areas again and again
- Owners who want a person to handle every message about pricing, refunds or complaints
- Probably not the right fit if your email runs on a provider other than Microsoft 365, or if every reply needs a custom quote.
How we work
From first conversation to live
Discovery
We talk through the mailbox you want covered, the questions you get most, and which topics always need a person. Scope and price are confirmed in writing after that short conversation.
Setup on your business profile
We write your approved knowledge, escalation keywords, skip rules and reply cap into your business profile, then register the Microsoft app and limit it to your one mailbox.
Test in safe mode
In safe mode, the agent reads real test messages and writes its replies to a review log instead of sending them. You read every reply it drafts, and see every message it holds, before anything reaches a customer.
Go live
We switch sending on, confirm the first live replies and tags in Outlook together, and make sure held drafts appear in your dashboard.
Ongoing review
We review held drafts, skipped messages and replies with you, and tune the knowledge and keywords as your business changes.
Scope
What's included, and what isn't
Exactly what's included is confirmed in writing for each project.
Included
- Microsoft Graph app registration and single-mailbox access policy
- Approved knowledge setup from your business profile
- Escalation keywords and held-draft approvals in your dashboard
- Automated-mail, newsletter and internal-domain filtering
- Per-sender daily reply cap
- Outlook tagging of every handled message
- Safe-mode testing before go-live
- A log of every reply, hold and skip
Not included
- Mailboxes outside Microsoft 365 for automatic inbox replies
- Writing quotes, invoices or contract terms
- Cleaning up or reorganizing your existing mail folders
- Bulk or marketing email, which runs through the marketing email agent
- Microsoft 365 licenses, which stay in your account
What you'll provide
- Admin access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, or a person who can grant app consent
- The mailbox address you want the agent to handle
- Answers to your common questions: services, hours, service area, policies
- Topics and words that should always go to a person
- Your internal email domains to skip
Safeguards
Controls built in
- Access is limited to one mailbox by an Exchange application access policy
- Answers come only from approved knowledge, and unknowns go to a person
- Escalation keywords hold the reply for human approval
- At most 3 automatic replies per sender per day
- No-reply senders, mailing lists, auto-replies and internal domains are never answered
- Messages stay unread and are tagged, never moved or deleted
- A reply is logged as sent only after Microsoft accepts it
FAQ
Questions owners ask
Will it reply to every email in my inbox?
No. It replies only to messages that look like genuine enquiries from real people. Automated senders, newsletters, auto-replies and your own team's email are skipped, and each sender gets at most 3 automatic replies a day.
Can it see my other mailboxes?
No. We limit the Microsoft app to the one mailbox you choose with an Exchange application access policy. Other mailboxes in your organization are outside its reach.
What happens when someone asks about price?
Price, quote and similar words are escalation keywords by default. The sender gets a short note that a member of the team will reply personally, and the agent's suggested reply waits in your dashboard for you to edit and send.
Will I still see new messages?
Yes. Every message stays unread. The agent adds a reply in the thread and an Outlook tag, so you can see what it did without losing track of what's new.
Can I approve every reply before it goes out?
Yes. You can turn automatic sending off so every reply is saved as a draft. Many owners start that way, then let routine answers send once they're comfortable with the drafts.
Does it pretend to be me?
No. It writes from your business, in your approved voice, and it never claims to be a specific person. If someone asks for a person, it says the team will reply personally.
Put AI email inbox agent to work
Tell us what you need. We reply with a few questions, and scope and price are confirmed in writing before any work starts.