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The moment a human agent sends a manual reply in a conversation, VGraple CRM pauses the AI for that specific conversation so the bot and a person never answer over each other. This article covers exactly what the pause does, how to see and change it, and how it clears.
AI takeover pause
- 1Send a manual reply as normal
- 2Watch the header chip change
- 3Keep replying normally while paused
- 4Resume the bot when you are done,
- 5Resolve the conversation when the interaction is
Before you start
- The pause is automatic; there is nothing to configure to get this behavior, it happens on any manual reply an agent sends.
- The toggle only appears as a clickable control when a bot is actually bound to that channel. On a channel with no active flow or configured widget bot, it shows as informational text explaining why instead.
- The pause is per conversation, not per contact, and it is unrelated to plan; every organisation with any bot connected gets takeover pause with no separate setting.
- Understanding this feature matters most for teams where agents and the bot both touch the same inbox regularly; if your organisation runs the bot fully unattended, you are unlikely to trigger it often.
- The pause is separate from the deliberate handoff described in AI escalation to a human: escalation is the bot choosing to step back, takeover pause is the platform reacting to a human already having stepped in.
Steps
- Send a manual reply as normal. No extra action is needed; typing and sending a message in the composer, exactly as you always would, is what triggers the pause.
- Watch the header chip change. The conversation header's AI indicator switches from "AI On" to "Paused" the moment your reply sends, confirming the bot has stopped for this conversation.
- Keep replying normally while paused. The bot will not answer the customer's next message, or any message after that, until the pause is lifted, so you can carry the conversation as long as needed without it interrupting.
- Resume the bot when you are done, if you want to. Click the "Paused" chip to flip it back to "AI On." This is a deliberate action; nothing clears the pause automatically mid-conversation.
- Resolve the conversation when the interaction is finished. Resolving clears the pause for that conversation entirely, so a new conversation with the same contact later starts with the bot active by default, not paused.
A busy salon inbox is a common place this matters: a customer messages the booking bot, gets most of the way through, then an agent jumps in to handle something the bot could not. Without an automatic pause, the bot could keep answering the customer's next message at the same time as the agent, producing two replies to one question and a confusing thread. The pause means the agent's manual reply is a genuine takeover, not just an interruption the bot ignores.
What you will see
The instant an agent sends a manual reply, any Flow Builder execution running in that conversation stops (its status changes to completed rather than continuing to run), and the header chip reads "Paused" in place of "AI On." A customer's next message in that conversation gets no automated reply at all, from any flow or the widget, until an agent explicitly resumes it. If the bot is later resumed and answers again, it discloses that the conversation is automated again, since the earlier disclosure record was cleared the moment the human took over.
This is different from the bot simply not being triggered. A conversation that shows "AI On" but never gets an automated reply has a different problem entirely, most likely a trigger, key or knowledge base gap rather than a pause; the header chip is the fastest way to tell the two apart before you start troubleshooting.
Settings and options
| Setting or field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| AI On / Paused toggle | Shows and controls whether the bot is active for this specific conversation | AI On, until a human sends a manual reply |
| Automatic pause trigger | Any manual outbound message sent by a human agent in the conversation | Always on, not configurable |
| Flow execution stop | Any Flow Builder execution running in the conversation is stopped the instant the pause is set | Always on, not configurable |
| Pause scope | Per conversation, not per contact | N/A |
| Resolve clears pause | Resolving the conversation clears the pause so a future conversation starts unpaused | Always on, not configurable |
| Disclosure reset | Clears the bot's earlier automated-experience disclosure for this conversation when a human takes over | Always on, not configurable |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The bot answered right after an agent's manual reply | The reply may have gone through an external channel (the native Instagram or Messenger app, or Business Suite) rather than VGraple CRM's own composer | Only replies sent from inside VGraple CRM trigger the automatic pause; a message sent from an external app is a separate protection, described on channel health |
| The AI toggle shows as plain text, not a clickable chip | No bot is actually bound to this channel: no active WhatsApp flow answers here, or no chat widget or Meta DM bot is configured | Set up a flow or widget for that channel first; the toggle becomes a real control once a bot exists to control |
| The bot stayed paused on a brand-new conversation with a returning contact | The prior conversation was never resolved, so its pause carried into a conversation the platform is still treating as ongoing | Resolve the earlier conversation; a genuinely new conversation record starts unpaused |
| An agent resumed the bot but it is still not answering | The bot may be blocked by a different gate entirely (no matching trigger, missing key, or opted-out contact), not the takeover pause | Work through the broader AI on but not replying checklist |
| The bot re-introduced itself as automated after being resumed | This is expected; taking over clears the earlier disclosure, so a resumed bot discloses again per Meta's requirement to disclose automated experiences | No fix needed; this is intentional, not a bug |
Related reading
Pair this with AI escalation to a human to understand the difference between the bot handing off deliberately and a human simply stepping in, and AI on but not replying if a paused conversation is only one of several possible causes you are ruling out.