Where you see decisions
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In the Inbox list, every thread row shows a status pill for what a Genie decided — Archived, Filed, Drafted reply, Reviewed, and so on. While a run is in flight you’ll see a live narration like “Thinking…”, “Archiving…”, “Filing → X”, or “Drafting reply…”.
- On a thread page, look for the one-line Genie reasoning strip above the acted message. Click it to see What Genie answered and Technical details — the questions it worked through and the pipeline behind the decision — and to reach Teach Genie and Run Genie without leaving the thread.
- In a mailbox’s Activity tab, click any row’s decision to open the full Decision Inspector — a “what did the Genie do and why” read-out. Overview shows the customer’s message, the reply that was prepared or sent, and a plain-language What happened summary; Full conversation shows the whole thread. If the decision is still waiting on you, you can approve or reject it right there. See Genies Home & Mailbox Detail.
What a Genie reads
A Genie doesn’t only read the email text. On the most recent incoming message it also looks at attachments:- Images — PNG, JPEG, GIF, and WebP files are shown to the Genie directly.
- Documents — PDF, plain text, CSV, TSV, and Word (
.docx) files have their text pulled out and included.
If an attachment is too large or can’t be read, that’s noted in the decision’s processing record — so you can tell when a Genie answered without seeing a file.
Follow-up requests from Help Genie Voice
When the email is one of Help Genie Voice’s own “please follow up” escalations, it only quotes a short excerpt of the customer conversation. A Genie recognises the conversation reference in those emails and pulls the full conversation — summary, topics, and transcript — from your Voice Genie before deciding, so it answers on what the customer actually said rather than on the excerpt alone.If the conversation can’t be fetched, the Genie simply works from the email as written.
When a Genie escalates to you
If a Genie mailbox decides an email needs a person, it forwards the thread to that mailbox’s escalation address. At the same time, it replies to the customer on the thread, so the sender isn’t left in silence while the escalation sits in your inbox. What the customer gets depends on how much the Genie could answer:- If it could answer part of the email, the customer gets that real, partial answer — written like any normal reply — along with a note that someone from your team will personally follow up on the rest. A Genie won’t bury a gap inside a vague “a team member will be in touch” reply and leave it there: if any part of a multi-part question isn’t covered, the whole thread escalates to you.
- If it couldn’t answer anything, the customer gets a short holding reply instead — two or three sentences acknowledging their message, with no promise about who will follow up or when.
The handoff note you receive
The email that lands in your inbox is a handoff note written for you, not for the customer: what they asked, what was already answered and sent to them, and exactly what’s still open and why.On escalations a Genie decided on before it ever drafted a reply, you’ll see its reasoning instead of a handoff note.
The customer reply is on by default and there’s no switch for it in the brain editors. If a mailbox needs forwards to stay silent to the customer, ask support to turn the customer reply off for that mailbox — your handoff note still tells you what the Genie was able to answer.
Test mode
If a Genie mailbox is in test mode, its escalations go to Help Genie support (support@helpgenie.ai) instead of your escalation address, so a mailbox you’re still testing never lands in the real owner’s inbox. Your escalation address isn’t changed — turning test mode back off resumes normal forwarding without you re-entering it. Customers still get the holding reply either way.
There’s no test-mode switch in Mail — ask support to turn test mode on or off for a mailbox.
When a Genie can’t back up a reply
A Genie mailbox also escalates when it wanted to reply but couldn’t back the reply up. If it decides an email deserves an answer but never gets the knowledge it needs — no Genie attached to that mailbox, no working connection to it, the lookup fails or times out, or it went to reply without actually looking anything up — it forwards the thread to you instead of sending the customer an empty, generic reply. The thread row shows Forwarded rather than Replied, and the reasoning on that decision says it couldn’t ground a reply. The customer still gets the short holding reply.Threads with no inbound message
One thing a Genie won’t do is act on a thread where nothing has come in yet. If a Genie mailbox sent the first message and the customer hasn’t replied, that thread gets no Genie decision — it waits for a real inbound message.Suggested replies
When a Genie has drafted a reply for a thread, you’ll see a Suggested reply card on the thread page.
- Approve sends it as-is
- Edit lets you tweak the body first
- Ignore dismisses the suggestion
Shaping how a Genie behaves — the “brain”
There are two brain editors, and they use the same panel:- Settings → Triage — the general rules your Genie applies to your personal mail.
- Mailbox detail → Genie brain — the rules for one provisioned Genie mailbox.
