Assist suggestions
How Stylo pre-generates responses and surfaces them as draft suggestions in the Zendesk sidebar.
Assist suggestions are draft responses that appear in the Stylo sidebar when an agent opens a ticket. Instead of starting from scratch, agents see ready-to-use responses that have already been generated based on the ticket context, customer data, and your workflow's instructions.
Suggestions can come from two sources:
- Response Workflows — AI-powered response templates that are automatically matched to tickets based on their "when to use" description
- Workflows — multi-step automations (data lookups, API calls, conditional logic) that produce a draft at the end of their execution
Both types surface in the same place in the sidebar, and agents interact with them the same way.
How suggestions work
From Response Workflows
- Customer sends a message — a new message arrives on a ticket
- Stylo runs in the background — all response workflows set to "cache" mode are evaluated against the ticket
- Responses are pre-generated — workflows that match the ticket generate their responses and store them as drafts
- Agent opens the ticket — the Stylo sidebar shows the best matching suggestions, ranked by confidence
- Agent reviews and sends — the response is pasted into the Zendesk composer for review and sending
Suggestions are generated proactively — by the time the agent opens the ticket, the response is already waiting.
From Workflows
- A trigger fires — a webhook, schedule, or manual action starts the workflow
- The workflow executes — steps run in sequence (fetch order data, check eligibility, call an API, generate a response with AI)
- The workflow pauses for review — when the workflow reaches a human review step set to surface a draft, it pauses and shows the draft in the sidebar
- Agent reviews and sends — the agent reviews the draft, optionally edits it, and approves. The workflow then resumes and completes any remaining steps (update ticket status, add tags, log to CRM).
Workflow-sourced drafts carry structured context data from the steps that ran before the review — agents can see what data was gathered and what decisions the workflow made.
What agents see
Each suggestion shows:
- Source name — which response workflow or workflow generated this response
- Confidence — how confident Stylo is that this suggestion matches the ticket (for response workflow suggestions)
- Generated response — the full response text, ready to review
- Context data — structured data from the workflow's execution (for workflow-sourced suggestions)
Agents can:
- Use the suggestion as-is — paste it into the composer and send
- Edit before sending — modify the response in the Zendesk composer
- Dismiss — skip the suggestion and write their own response
Setting up suggestions
For Response Workflows
- Set the workflow's automation mode to Cache
- Choose a trigger type (typically Customer reply)
- Write a clear "when to use" description so Stylo matches it to the right tickets
- Publish the workflow
The workflow will now run in the background whenever a matching ticket event occurs, and the generated response will appear as a suggestion in the sidebar.
For Workflows
- Build your workflow with the steps needed to gather data and generate a response
- Add a Human Review step and turn on its draft-to-sidebar option
- Configure the draft text field to reference the upstream node that contains the response
- Set the visibility mode to Cache
- Publish the workflow
When the workflow's trigger fires, it will execute up to the human review step, then surface the draft in the sidebar for agent review.
Multiple suggestions
If more than one source matches a ticket, agents see multiple suggestions ranked by confidence. For example, an order-related ticket might have a pre-generated response from a "Refund Policy" response workflow and a data-enriched draft from a "Order Investigation" workflow — the agent sees both and picks the most relevant one.
On-demand generation
Some suggestions appear with a "generate" option instead of a pre-rendered response. This happens when Stylo identified a matching response workflow but didn't pre-generate the response (to save resources). The agent clicks to generate the response on demand, using the current ticket state.
Suggestions on messaging channels
For messaging channels (WhatsApp, Web Widget, chat), suggestions work the same way from the agent's perspective — they appear in the Stylo sidebar in Zendesk Agent Workspace. The difference is in how the response is delivered once the agent approves it.
Progressive automation
Assist suggestions are the starting point of Stylo's progressive automation model:
- Start with suggestions — agents review every response before sending. This builds confidence in Stylo's quality and surfaces edge cases.
- Monitor acceptance rates — track how often agents use suggestions as-is, edit them, or dismiss them. High acceptance rates indicate the workflow is ready for more automation.
- Graduate to automatic sending — once you're confident in a workflow's quality, switch it from cache mode to internal note or public reply mode. The AI sends responses automatically, and agents only handle escalations.
This progression lets you build trust gradually — every suggestion that an agent reviews is a data point that informs whether full automation is appropriate.
Tips
- Cache mode is risk-free. Cached suggestions are never sent automatically — an agent always reviews first. This makes it a great starting point for any workflow.
- Use "when to use" descriptions to reduce noise. If agents see too many irrelevant suggestions, tighten the response workflow's "when to use" description so it only matches the right tickets.
- Track usage. Monitor how often agents use, edit, or dismiss suggestions. High dismissal rates indicate the workflow needs improvement — either the matching is off or the generated responses aren't helpful.
- Combine sources. Response workflows are great for straightforward responses. Workflows are better when the response requires multi-step data gathering or conditional logic. Use both together for comprehensive coverage.