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  4. Overview

Chat Overview

The Chat API enables real-time conversational interactions with AI Employees. Users create conversations, send messages, and receive AI-generated responses that can include text, buttons, forms, feedback requests, and source attributions.

Core Concepts

Conversations

A conversation is a session between a user and an AI Employee. Each conversation:

  • Is tied to a specific AI Employee
  • Contains an ordered sequence of messages
  • Maintains context across multiple exchanges
  • Supports both synchronous and asynchronous response modes

Messages

Messages flow in both directions:

  • User messages -- Text input from the user
  • AI responses -- Structured responses from the AI Employee, which can contain multiple message types

Message Types

AI Employee responses can include several message types:

TypeDescription
TextPlain text or markdown-formatted response
ButtonsClickable options for the user to select
FormStructured form fields for collecting user input
FeedbackRequest for thumbs-up/thumbs-down or rating feedback
URLLink to an external resource

Snippets

Snippets are structured data blocks embedded in responses. They provide rich content such as:

  • Source citations -- References to knowledge base articles
  • Code blocks -- Formatted code with syntax highlighting
  • Tables -- Structured tabular data
  • Images -- Inline images
  • File attachments -- Downloadable files
  • Action results -- Outputs from workflow actions

The platform supports 15+ snippet types for different content formats.

Source Attribution

When an AI Employee's response draws from knowledge sources, the response includes source attributions that link back to the original documents. This enables users to verify the information and access the full source material.

Platform Integrations

The Chat API supports multiple interaction channels:

  • Web chatbot -- Embeddable chat widget for websites
  • Slack -- Direct integration with Slack workspaces
  • Microsoft Teams -- Integration with Teams channels
  • API -- Direct API access for custom integrations

Each channel uses the same underlying conversation and message model, with platform-specific adaptations for message formatting and delivery.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Responses

The Chat API offers two response modes:

  • Synchronous -- The response is returned in the same request. Suitable for short interactions. See RespondToMessage (Synchronous) in the Chat API.
  • Asynchronous -- The request returns immediately, and the response is delivered later. Suitable for long-running workflows. See RespondToMessage (Asynchronous) in the Chat API.

Chatbot Configuration

Each AI Employee can be configured with chatbot-specific settings:

  • Welcome messages
  • Suggested questions
  • Brand colors and logos
  • Source display preferences
  • Custom CSS

Retrieve chatbot configuration using the GetChatbotConfig endpoint in the Chat API.

Last updated: Jul 3, 2026