# What Is Human Handoff in Chatbots and AI?

Source: https://insertchat.com/glossary/human-handoff

> Human handoff is when an AI assistant passes a conversation to a person with its context intact. Learn the common triggers and what a good handoff includes.

Human handoff is the point where an AI assistant passes a customer conversation to a person, along with everything said so far. It happens when the customer asks for someone, the AI can’t answer confidently, the customer is upset, or the request needs human judgment. A good handoff tells the customer what happens next and spares them from repeating themselves.

## How human handoff works

Handoff has three parts. A trigger decides when it happens: an explicit request, low confidence, repeated failure, negative sentiment, or a listed sensitive topic. A notification tells the right person: an inbox flag, an email, or a push alert. And a takeover lets that person continue with the history, a summary, and any details the assistant collected.

The most common mistake is a handoff to nobody: the bot says “connecting you to an agent” when no one is available. Outside staffed hours, the honest version is collecting details and promising a follow-up by a specific route.

## Example: a law firm intake call

A caller to a law firm describes a car accident, then asks whether she should accept the insurer’s offer. That is legal advice, which the firm listed as always needing a person. The assistant says an attorney will review it, collects the accident date and her contact details, and the firm sees the conversation flagged with a summary. This scenario is illustrative.

## Human handoff in InsertChat

InsertChat hands a conversation to your team when a customer asks for a person, the assistant is unsure of an answer, a customer says twice that an answer didn’t help, a customer is upset, or a request needs an action outside its permissions. Add topics that always need a person and the message customers see while a person is asked to help. The conversation is marked needs-you and the teammates you choose are notified.

On website chat, a teammate can take over in the same window and reply in real time while the AI steps back. On calls, InsertChat does not transfer live; the assistant collects details and your team follows up. Set it up with [how to set up human handoff](https://insertchat.com/blog/set-up-human-handoff), or see the [law firm setup](https://insertchat.com/industries/legal).

## What triggers a chatbot to hand off to a human?

Common triggers are a direct request for a person, low confidence or missing information, repeated failed answers, an upset customer, and topics the business marks as sensitive.

## What should the customer see during a handoff?

A clear message that a person will help and how: reply in the chat, a callback, or an email. Don’t promise an instant connection unless someone is actually available.

## Related terms

- [Escalation](https://insertchat.com/glossary/escalation): Escalation is moving a customer issue to someone with more authority, expertise, or urgency than the first point of contact, such as from a chatbot to staff, or from staff to the owner.
- [Live call transfer](https://insertchat.com/glossary/live-call-transfer): A live call transfer moves an active call from whoever answered it, a receptionist, an agent, or an AI, to another person while the caller stays on the line.
- [Shared inbox](https://insertchat.com/glossary/shared-inbox): A shared inbox is one workspace where a team sees and answers customer conversations together instead of in separate personal inboxes.
- [Fallback intent](https://insertchat.com/glossary/fallback-intent): A fallback intent is the response a chatbot or voice assistant uses when it can’t match a message to anything it knows how to handle, or doesn’t have the answer.
- [AI hallucination](https://insertchat.com/glossary/ai-hallucination): An AI hallucination is a response from an AI system that sounds confident but is false, made up, or unsupported by its sources, such as an invented price, policy, or appointment time.

## Related InsertChat pages

- [How to set up human handoff](https://insertchat.com/blog/set-up-human-handoff)
- [Shared inbox](https://insertchat.com/product/inbox)
- [AI receptionist for law firms](https://insertchat.com/industries/legal)