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The Summary button in a conversation's header generates a two to three sentence AI summary of the whole thread on demand, so an agent picking up someone else's conversation or returning to a long one after a gap can catch up in seconds. This article covers how to use it and what it needs to work.
Conversation summaries
- 1Open a conversation
- 2Click the Summary button
- 3Wait a few seconds while it generates
- 4Read the summary
- 5Generate a fresh summary any time
Before you start
- AI conversation summaries require the Growth plan or above; organisations that had AI features configured before this plan gate applied keep access regardless of their current plan.
- Your organisation needs an API key for at least one supported AI provider (Anthropic Claude, Groq, or OpenAI) configured in Settings; VGraple CRM does not provide a shared key you can use without one. See bringing your own OpenAI or Anthropic key.
- Generating a summary uses the "Send messages" permission (
inbox:send), the same permission needed to reply in the inbox, rather than a separate AI permission. - A summary reads whatever messages already exist in the conversation; it cannot summarise anything that has not been sent yet.
Steps
- Open a conversation you want summarised, ideally one with enough history that a quick catch-up is actually useful.
- Click the Summary button in the conversation header, shown with a book icon next to it.
- Wait a few seconds while it generates. The button shows a spinner in place of its icon while the request is in flight, since it calls out to your configured AI provider live rather than reading from a cache.
- Read the summary. It appears as a two to three sentence overview of the conversation, covering what the customer wanted and where things currently stand.
- Generate a fresh summary any time. Clicking the button again produces a new summary reflecting any messages sent since the last one, rather than reusing the previous result.
Why a summary button instead of always-on AI notes
Reading every message in a long-running conversation before replying is one of the most common time drains for a support team, especially when a conversation is being reassigned, reopened after weeks, or picked up by whoever happens to be online rather than the original agent. VGraple CRM puts the summary behind a deliberate click rather than generating one automatically on every message, mainly because that keeps the cost and the AI-provider call tied to moments where a summary is actually useful, rather than firing on every single inbound message regardless of whether anyone needs a recap.
Example
A real-estate agency reassigns a lead's conversation from an agent who is on leave to a colleague covering for the week. Instead of reading forty messages of back-and-forth about budget, location and viewing dates, the covering agent clicks Summary and gets a short paragraph capturing what the prospect is looking for and where the conversation currently stands, then replies with full context in under a minute.
Because each summary is generated fresh from the live conversation rather than cached, it always reflects the most recent messages, including ones sent moments before you click it. This also means the underlying AI provider genuinely reads through the conversation history each time, so the button is best used when a real catch-up is needed rather than clicked repeatedly out of habit on a conversation nothing has changed on.
What you will see
Clicking Summary shows a brief loading state, then a short paragraph summarising the conversation in plain language, for example noting what the customer originally asked about and what has been resolved or is still pending. If your organisation has no AI provider configured, or the request to the provider fails for any reason, the summary reads "Summary unavailable" rather than showing an error dialog or leaving the button stuck loading.
Settings and options
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| AI provider API key (Settings) | Anthropic, Groq or OpenAI key that powers summaries and other AI features | None configured |
| Default AI provider | Which configured provider is tried first if more than one key is set | Organisation setting |
| Plan requirement | Growth plan or above, unless AI was configured before this gate applied | Growth+ |
| Summary length | Two to three sentences | Fixed by the underlying prompt |
| Freshness | Generated live on each click, not cached | Always current as of the click |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The summary reads "Summary unavailable" | No AI provider API key is configured for your organisation, or the request to the provider failed | Add a key under Settings; see bringing your own OpenAI or Anthropic key |
| The Summary button is missing entirely from the header | Your organisation is on a plan below Growth and never had AI configured before the gate applied | Upgrade to Growth or above to unlock AI conversation summaries |
| The summary seems out of date | You are reading a summary generated before the most recent messages were sent | Click Summary again to generate a fresh one |
| The summary misses something important from earlier in a very long conversation | The underlying AI model summarises the available message history, but very long threads can compress detail | Scroll the thread directly for anything the summary does not capture |
| Summaries feel slow to generate | This depends on your configured AI provider's response time, which VGraple CRM does not control | Try again, or check whether your provider is experiencing delays |
Related reading
Conversation summaries work well alongside assigning conversations, since a summary is most useful exactly when a conversation changes hands. For the chatbot side of AI in VGraple CRM, see the AI chatbot feature and AI reply suggestions.