Text message AI is an AI agent that reads incoming texts and replies in your company's voice: it answers routine questions, asks the qualifying questions you set, offers booking times and hands the thread to a person when it should. Its value is coverage and follow-through. Enquiries that arrive at 9pm or during a busy morning get an answer in seconds, and each one is steered towards a meeting rather than left as a chat. This article answers how to set up an SMS AI bot on the levelpartner.ai platform, how to limit what it says and how to keep a person in control.
What the agent does in a text conversation
An agent on the SMS channel does three jobs. It answers the predictable questions from facts you provide: opening hours, the areas or sectors you cover, how bookings work. It gathers what an adviser needs before a first call: what the prospect wants, their timing, their budget band. And it moves the conversation to an outcome, usually a booked meeting or a hand-off to the right adviser.
The third job matters most for a firm with flat revenue. Plenty of prospects text, get an answer and drift away. An agent instructed to always propose a next step turns those conversations into diary entries. Every message it sends sits in Conversations on the contact record, beside your team's messages, so a person can step in at any point.
What it should never do: negotiate, give advice that carries legal or financial weight, quote fees outside your published terms or handle complaints. Those go to a person, and the set-up should make that automatic.
Before you start
- A texting number connected and registered for the messages the agent will send.
- A short, factual set of approved answers: services, areas, hours, how bookings work, what you do not do.
- Three or four qualifying questions, written as you would ask them by text.
- A booking calendar for first meetings with real availability.
- A list of topics that must always go to a person, such as specific fees, regulated advice and complaints.
How to create the agent
- Go to AI Agents > Conversation AI and click + Create Bot.
- Select Guided Form Setup.
- Click Create New Bot.
- Choose Appointment Booking as the bot type.
- Select or create a Brand Voice.
- Configure Bot Settings with your instructions and approved answers.
- Configure Bot Goals for the facts to collect.
- Save the bot.
- Choose Suggestive as the bot's mode to start.
How to put it on your SMS number
- Go to AI Agents > Conversation AI, Agents List tab.
- Select the bot you want to deploy.
- Open the Deploy tab.
- Turn on the SMS channel.
- Open the SMS channel's edit icon.
- Turn on Assign channel.
- Choose the phone number that should route to this bot.
- Add any Has tags or Doesn't have tags conditions.
- Click Update, then click Save.
Tag conditions let you keep the agent away from existing key clients, who expect their adviser personally. In Suggestive mode the agent drafts each reply for a person to edit and send from Conversations. Review a week or two of drafts, correct the instructions, then switch to Auto-Pilot for out-of-hours conversations first and business hours only once you trust it.
Writing instructions that hold
Vague instructions such as "be helpful" produce long, eager replies that promise too much. Specific rules work better: "Reply in under 40 words. Ask one question per message. If asked about fees, say an adviser will confirm them on the call and offer a time." Include two or three examples of good replies, because the agent follows patterns more reliably than descriptions.
Give it the qualification order. For a mortgage brokerage that might be the purpose of the mortgage, the rough timing and whether the prospect has an agreement in principle. For an agency, the service needed, the start date and the budget range. Once those facts are in, the agent should offer a meeting rather than keep asking.
Say the brokerage receives about 90 text enquiries a month, a third of them outside office hours, and evening enquiries wait until the next morning. Suppose 8 of those 30 currently book a call. With an agent answering out of hours, asking two questions and offering slots, if 17 of 30 booked, that would be 9 more calls a month. Advisers would still read each thread before the call. Every number is an assumption.
Handover and routing
An agent that never hands over frustrates people; one that hands over too often adds nothing. Set clear triggers: the contact asks for a person, uses words linked to a complaint, raises a topic on your list or asks something the approved answers do not cover. When it hands over it should say so plainly and say when to expect a reply.
Qualification only pays if the right person gets the result. Write the answers to contact fields, tag the service line and assign the contact to the right owner: a buy-to-let enquiry to the specialist, a commercial brief to the new business lead. For human-led routing of replies, see conversational SMS.
The trade-off you accept
An agent is fast and tireless, and it is also confidently wrong sometimes. The cost of using it is ongoing supervision: someone reads a sample of conversations every week and tightens the instructions, about 20 minutes a day at first. If nobody will do that, keep it in Suggestive mode permanently.
Giving the agent your whole website as its only source. Marketing pages are written to persuade, not to answer precisely. A short set of factual approved answers carries more weight.
When not to use text message AI
Do not use it for regulated advice, complaints or anything where a wrong answer causes harm; a mortgage broker's agent must never comment on whether a client will be approved. Do not use it where every enquiry is complex and personal and the first conversation sets the relationship. If you receive a handful of texts a week, a person will do better. For simpler replies without AI, see auto text message set-ups, and for calls you could not answer, missed call text back.
Troubleshooting
The agent writes long paragraphs
Put a hard limit near the top of the instructions, no reply over two sentences, with an example of a good short reply.
It books meetings with unqualified prospects
The instructions allow booking too early. State that it may only offer slots after it has collected every qualifying fact.
It gives wrong facts
The approved answers are incomplete or out of date. Update them and tell the agent to say it does not know rather than guess.
Prospects ask whether they are talking to a person
Tell the agent to answer honestly that it is an assistant and offer to bring in a person. Hiding it damages trust.
Frequently asked questions
Will the AI reply to every text?
Only on the numbers and conditions you deploy it to. You can keep it to new contacts or out-of-hours while your team handles existing clients.
Can the same agent work on WhatsApp or web chat?
Yes, the Deploy tab lists other channels. Start with SMS and add others once replies are reliable, reviewing each separately.
Who is responsible for what the agent says?
Your firm is. Review conversations regularly and keep the instructions current. The SMS marketing best practices guide covers the consent side.
How is AI usage billed?
AI usage is billed as used alongside the text messages themselves, on top of the platform licence.
The journey this guide describes
Qualification and routing
- Trigger
Enquiry captured
Intent read by the AI agent
- Trigger
Deal created
In the new business pipeline
Questions answered
The AI agent asks the two or three questions that decide fit, in plain conversation.
MinutesIntent and value scored
Answers are scored for intent and likely deal value and written to the contact record.
SecondsRouted to the right person
Higher-value deals go to a senior owner, the rest to the team, by rules you set.
Instant- High valueScore above your threshold
Senior owner assigned
Unassigned deals only
Owner notified
The assigned person gets the answers and the suggested next step, not just a name.
InstantCall-back booked
Within 5 minutes, on the owner's calendar
- Done
- StandardGood fit, normal value
Round robin across the team
Shared evenly, unassigned only
Team member notified
With the answers attached
- End
- Poor fitOutside what you sell
Poor fits handled politely
Enquiries that do not fit get a useful reply and move to a nurture list, not silence.
Same day- End
- High valueScore above your threshold