What is an AI email agent?
An AI email agent is software that reads incoming email, works out what each message is asking, and writes a reply, which it either holds for a person to approve or sends on its own under rules you set.
An AI email agent is different from an auto-responder and from a template tool. An auto-responder sends the same canned message to everyone. A template tool waits for you to pick a snippet. An agent reads the specific message, decides what kind of question it is, and composes a reply to that question using facts you have given it.
What an agent needs to do the job well
Three things shape the quality of an agent's replies. The first is knowledge: the policies, prices, and answers it is allowed to rely on. The second is instruction: the role it plays and the tone it writes in. The third is feedback: examples of replies a person has approved or corrected, so later drafts move closer to how that person writes.
An agent also needs limits. The useful ones are a review step before anything sends, a way to measure how sure the agent is about a draft, caps on how much it can send, and a record of what it did.
How inboxr approaches it
inboxr connects to a mailbox over IMAP and SMTP, drafts a reply to each new email, and starts every mailbox in co-pilot mode, where a person approves each draft. Autopilot, where confident drafts send on their own, stays locked on a mailbox until it has built up a history of clean approvals.