Quickstart
Go from an empty workspace to an AI answering real customer questions, in about fifteen minutes.
On this page
This is the shortest path to a working setup. Each step links to a fuller guide if you want the detail.
1. Create your workspace
Sign up, and Kognit creates a workspace owned by your account. Everything you add — tickets, contacts, connected accounts, knowledge — is scoped to that workspace and invisible to every other customer.
During onboarding you pick a category (ecommerce, SaaS, services). That choice tunes your starting suggestions and nothing else.
2. Connect a channel
You need at least one place for customer messages to arrive. The fastest options:
- Forward your support email — two minutes, works with any mail provider. Copy the forwarding address from Connections and set it as a forwarding target in Gmail, Outlook, or Zoho.
- Connect Gmail or Outlook directly — a full OAuth connection, so replies send from your real mailbox.
- Install the web widget — one script tag on your site.
See Connect your first channel.
3. Give the AI something to know
The AI answers from your knowledge base, not from general internet knowledge. An empty knowledge base means an AI that escalates everything.
Open AI Brain and add:
- Your shipping, returns, and refund policies
- Answers to the five questions you personally answer most often
- Your catalog, if you connected Shopify or WooCommerce — this syncs automatically
See Train the AI on your business.
4. Decide what the AI is allowed to do
Open AI Autopilot. Two settings matter on day one:
| Setting | What it does | Suggested start |
|---|---|---|
| Autopilot enabled | Master switch. Off means the AI drafts but never sends. | Off for the first day |
| Reply threshold | Minimum confidence before the AI answers alone | 90 |
Leave Autopilot off at first, watch what it would have said, then turn it on once the drafts look right.
Refunds, billing, and other money questions always route to a human regardless of these settings. That guardrail is not configurable.
5. Send yourself a test
Email your support address from a personal account, or open your site and message the widget.
Within a minute you should see:
- A new ticket in Inbox, with the sender resolved to a contact
- An intent label (order status, refund, shipping) and a team assignment
- An SLA countdown, and an assignee if you have more than one agent
If nothing arrives, see Inbound email isn't arriving.
6. Invite your team
Add teammates under Settings → Team and give each a role. Roles decide what people can see and change — an agent can work tickets but cannot touch billing.
See Invite your team and Roles and permissions.
What to do next
- Put a real SLA on your tickets: SLA policies
- Authenticate your sending domain so replies stop landing in spam: Verify your sending domain
- Connect your store for order lookups: Connect Shopify
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