The AI Text Responder uses your existing Family AI Assistant(s) to respond to incoming text messages from families. There’s no additional AI setup required: responses follow the same prompts and custom instructions you've already configured for each audience.
With the AI Text Responder:
Choose when the AI responds: Pause AI responses across text messaging when you'd prefer your team to handle replies directly.
Customize responses by message: Add specific instructions to guide how the AI should respond to replies to an individual text message.
Step in when needed: Admins can take over a conversation from the AI at any time.
The AI Text Responder is available to institutions that have CampusESP Text Messaging and either a trial or purchased version of the Family AI Assistant.
Visit your Text Messages page
From the admin area, navigate to the Text Messages page by hovering over the Content area and clicking Text Messages in the sub-menu.
At the top of the Text Messages page, you'll see the current status of your AI Text Responder.
When AI responses are enabled, you'll see, “AI Assistant is on for all text replies”
When enabled, the Family AI Assistant(s) can automatically respond to incoming text messages from families associated with a persona that is either in trial or active status.
Pause/Re-enable AI responses on the Text Messages Page
There may be times when you don't want AI responding to incoming texts. For example, when sending a sensitive communication or when your team would prefer to manage conversations directly.
You can temporarily pause AI responses for all text replies from the Text Messages page.
When paused, you'll see the following:
The screen will display “AI responses are paused for all text replies until [48 hours later].”
If you'd rather keep AI responses disabled indefinitely, select Keep off until I turn it back on. AI responses will remain paused until an admin manually turns them back on.
You can also re-enable from this page at any time!
NOTE: Pausing the AI Text Responder here applies to all text replies, including replies to messages you've already sent and configured for AI responses. This setting will also apply to any new text messages you create. However, you can override the setting on this page or when drafting a new text message.
Create a text message
For complete instructions on creating, targeting, and sending text messages, see our Create and Send a Text Message article.
Once you've finished drafting your text message and selected your audience, you'll find a new “AI Assistant responses” and “If AI Assistant can't respond” sections at the bottom of the configuration page.
From these sections, you can control how the AI Assistant handles replies to a specific text, add message-specific instructions, pause AI responses, and choose how replies should be handled when AI isn't available.
“AI Assistant responses” section
From here, you can control how the AI Assistant handles replies to this specific text message. You can:
Turn AI responses on or off: Temporarily pause AI responses or keep them off until you’re ready to turn them back on. If AI responses are already turned off, you can also re-enable them from this page.
Customize AI responses by clicking “Advanced settings.” This provides additional instructions that are specific to this message, which persist for 3 days.
“If AI Assistant can't respond” section
This section will always appear, even if the AI Text Responder is enabled for all of your audiences. If AI is enabled for everyone receiving your message, there’s nothing you need to do here!
If AI is unavailable for one or more of your audiences—or if you have paused/turned off AI responses —use this section to decide what should happen when families reply to your text:
Let admins respond: Route replies to your team for a personal response. Select a Subscriber list to determine which admins should be notified when a response is needed.
Send an automatic reply: Send the same immediate response to families.. Enter the message you'd like users to receive, and it will automatically send when they reply.
Jump into the Conversation
Even when the AI Text Responder is handling a conversation, your team can step in and respond personally at any time.
Navigate to the Text Conversations page, where a red dot will indicate conversations with new activity. Open a conversation to review the family's messages, see which AI Assistant persona has been responding, and read through the full conversation history.
When a conversation needs a personal touch, simply jump in and send a response yourself! Once an admin responds, AI responses for that specific conversation will be paused for 48 hours or until you send another text message to the user.
View Text Interactions in AI Chat History
AI Text Responder conversations are also included alongside your other Family AI Assistant interactions, giving you one place to review how families are engaging across different channels.
To view these interactions, navigate to Admin → AI → Chat History.
From the Chat History page, you can review AI Assistant conversations from both the platform and text messaging. Conversations that took place over text are marked with an SMS indicator, making it easy to distinguish them from interactions that happened directly within the platform.
Use Chat History to review the questions families are asking over text, see how your AI Assistant responded, and get a more complete picture of how your AI Assistant is supporting families across channels.