# Instagram & Messenger AI With Human Handoff > Reachlee AI answers Instagram and Messenger DMs from your knowledge, then flags complaints, buyers asking for a person and questions it can't answer. ✦ Reachlee AI · Human handoff # The AI answers the questions. You get the people who need you. Reachlee AI replies to Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger conversations from your own knowledge. When a message needs a person (a complaint, someone asking for you, a question it can't answer) it flags the conversation, says why, and alerts you by email or Telegram. Included in Growth, $14/mo. Updated October 2026 · Human-verified [Get started ](/app/?src=seo&page=ai%2Fhuman-handoff)[See Reachlee AI](/product/reachlee-ai/) Official Meta API · Meta-verified Tech Provider · Growth plan, $14/mo 1Reachlee AI answers DMs on Instagram and Facebook Messenger from the knowledge you give it, and stays silent on greetings, emoji, friend chat and spam. 2When it can't or shouldn't handle a message alone, the conversation gets a Needs you flag with the reason and the contact's own words: a complaint, a request for a person, a question your knowledge doesn't cover, a message it couldn't place, an AI error, or credits running out. 3You hear about it by email or Telegram, instantly or in a digest, with quiet hours and a cap of six alerts a day. Any reply on the thread clears the flag, and the AI stands back for 48 hours once a person has replied. ## What is AI-to-human handoff in DMs? Human handoff is the point where an AI chatbot stops and a person takes over. In Reachlee it is built into the AI itself: routine questions are answered from your knowledge, and any conversation the AI shouldn't handle alone (a complaint, a buyer asking for a person, a question it has no answer for) is flagged as Needs you, with the reason, and sent to you by email or Telegram. Once you reply, the AI steps back from that thread for 48 hours. ## An AI that answers everything is the wrong goal The DMs that cost you money are rarely the easy ones. "Price?" and "do you ship to Pune?" are questions any decent setup can answer. The expensive messages are the angry customer who gets a cheerful canned reply, the buyer who asks to speak to someone and receives the sales page link for the third time, and the question your notes never covered, where a chatbot that always answers is tempted to guess. Reachlee AI is built to stay quiet when it should, and Needs you makes that silence visible. Every inbound DM is read first: questions, buying intent, support issues and contact requests can get an answer drawn from your knowledge, and everything else is skipped without spending a credit. When a message falls into one of six situations, the conversation is flagged for you instead of being left to the AI. * Sounds like a problem: the message reads as a complaint or an issue. It stays flagged even if the AI answered, because an AI reply never closes a complaint. * Wants to talk to someone: they asked for a person, a phone number or a link, and your knowledge has nothing to give them. * No answer in your knowledge: nothing you added covers the question, or a guardrail stopped the draft (a price, a phone number or a link that isn't in your knowledge). * Not sure what they meant: a message inside an ongoing conversation that the AI couldn't place. * Your AI couldn't answer: the AI service failed, even after a retry. * Out of AI credits: the workspace used its monthly credits, so the AI has stopped replying. One alert for the whole workspace, not one per conversation. How it works ## From the DM to your phone in four steps 01 ### Give the AI something to answer from In Reachlee AI, add your knowledge: website pages, FAQs, pasted notes, price lists. Switch on AI Replies for DMs. The AI answers only from what you add, in the language the contact writes in, and never sends a link that isn't in your knowledge. 02 ### Every DM is answered or flagged Each inbound message on Instagram or Facebook Messenger is classified first. A question your knowledge covers gets a reply within seconds. A greeting or an emoji gets nothing. A message that matches one of the six situations above gets a Needs you flag on the conversation, with the reason and a one-line summary of what they wrote. 03 ### You're told once, where you look Open Settings → Notifications to pick Instant, Digest or Off for each group of reasons, and set quiet hours. Email goes to the workspace owner by default. To get the same alerts in Telegram, connect it under Settings → Integrations: click Connect Telegram and tap Start in the chat that opens. 04 ### Reply, teach or dismiss The alert's button opens the conversation. Under the message the AI left to you, a short note says why, with Teach the AI and Dismiss. Reply from the Inbox and the flag clears; Teach the AI opens the Playground on that exact message so you can write the right answer once and have it used from then on. What's inside ## Built so the hard conversations reach a person Needs you is part of Reachlee AI, not a separate tool. These are the pieces that decide what gets flagged, how you hear about it, and what happens after. 01 ### A reason on every flag A flag never just says "needs attention". It names the situation (a complaint, a request for a person, a gap in your knowledge, an unclear message, an error, credits) and quotes the contact's words, so you know from the alert alone whether it can wait until after lunch. 02 ### Complaints stay open until a person replies Any reply on a conversation, from you, a teammate, the Instagram app or an automation, closes its flag. The one exception is the AI itself: an AI reply never closes a complaint or a request for a person. Those wait for a human, which is the point of handing them over. 03 ### A Needs you view in the Inbox The Inbox gets a Needs you chip that filters to flagged conversations, and each flagged row carries an amber pill. The AI Overview shows how many conversations need you right now. Items you never get to expire after seven days, so the list doesn't turn into a graveyard. 04 ### Alerts that respect your evening Choose Instant or Digest per group. By default complaints, requests for a person and running out of credits arrive within minutes; the rest are bundled into a digest of what is still open, at most every two hours. Quiet hours default to 22:00–08:00 in your time zone, and no workspace gets more than six alerts a day. 05 ### Teach once, answered next time When the flag is a knowledge gap, Teach the AI opens the [AI Playground](/ai/ai-playground/) on that exact message. You type the answer in your own words, it is saved to your knowledge, and the question runs again so you can see the new reply before the next contact asks. 06 ### Hot leads go straight to you The Flow template "Reachlee AI answers, hot leads go to you" adds a routing step before the AI: if the latest message asks to buy, book or talk to a real person, the contact goes into a Hot leads folder and hears that someone from the team will reply. Everything else is handed to Reachlee AI. ## A bot with no handoff vs. Reachlee AI with Needs you | The message | A bot that always answers | Reachlee AI with Needs you | | --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | An unhappy customer | Gets a polite, generic reply and nobody on your side notices | Flagged as a complaint even if the AI replied; instant alert by default | | "Can I talk to someone?" | Sends the sales link again | Flagged as wants to talk to someone; you reply, the AI steps back | | A question your notes don't cover | Risks a made-up answer | No reply sent; flagged as no answer in your knowledge, with Teach the AI | | A draft quoting a price you never added | Can reach the customer | Guardrail drops the draft and flags the thread | | You reply yourself | Bot may keep talking over you | Flag clears; the AI stays out of that thread for 48 hours | | Monthly AI credits run out | Replies stop without notice | One workspace alert, instant by default | The middle column describes a pattern, not a named product. Reachlee AI replies use your knowledge only and stay inside Meta's 24-hour messaging window. Real scenarios ## Three DMs that should never be left to a bot ### The order that hasn't arrived Before "It's been ten days and my order still isn't here." A rule-based bot answers with the shipping policy. The customer writes again, angrier, and you only see the thread the next evening when you finally open the inbox. With Reachlee Reachlee AI can still share the shipping policy from your knowledge, but the conversation is flagged as a complaint and you get an instant email or Telegram message with their words. You reply within the hour, the flag clears, and the AI stays out of that thread while you sort it. ### The buyer who wants a person Before "Before I pay for the 12-week program, can I speak to someone?" Your automation sends the program page again. The most qualified lead you had this week decides you're a faceless funnel and goes quiet. With Reachlee With the hot-leads Flow template, the AI check spots someone asking to talk to a real person, adds them to Hot leads and tells them a person will reply right there. You answer from the Inbox; everyone else's routine questions are still handled by the AI. ### The question you never wrote down Before "What's your rate for a sponsored reel?" There's nothing about rates in your notes, on purpose. A bot that always answers either dodges awkwardly or invents a number you'd never quote. With Reachlee Reachlee AI stays silent and the thread lands in your next digest as no answer in your knowledge. You reply personally, or use Teach the AI to save a standard answer ("rates depend on the brief, send it to this email") for the next brand that asks. Pricing ## Needs you comes with Reachlee AI. Growth is $14/mo. Needs you flags and their email and Telegram alerts are part of Reachlee AI on the Growth plan: $14/mo with 1,000 AI credits a month. A credit is used only when the AI sends a reply; skipped messages and flags cost nothing. Growth includes everything in Pro: 3 connected Instagram accounts or Facebook Pages, unlimited DMs, contacts and leads, Retrigger and follow-ups. Business, $29/mo, adds 5 team seats so several people can work the flagged conversations, 10 accounts, Google Sheets and 2,500 AI credits. [Get started ](/app/?src=seo&page=ai%2Fhuman-handoff) FAQ ## AI handoff, answered honestly Will the AI say something wrong to a customer? It can, like any AI, which is why Reachlee limits what it may say. It answers only from the knowledge you added, only replies to questions, buying intent, support issues and contact requests, and guardrails drop any draft that quotes a price, a phone number or a link that isn't in your knowledge. When it is unsure, it stays silent and the conversation is flagged for you instead. Every reply it sends is listed in the Activity feed, you can mute the AI on any thread, and you can pause it for the whole account. What exactly counts as needing me? Six situations. A message that reads as a complaint or a problem. Someone asking for a person, a phone number or a link that your knowledge doesn't have. A question nothing in your knowledge answers, or a draft a guardrail stopped. A message inside an ongoing conversation the AI couldn't place. An AI service error. And running out of monthly AI credits, which is one alert for the whole workspace. Greetings, emoji, spam and routine questions the AI answered are never flagged. Will I get spammed with alerts? No. Alerts are sent per workspace about what is still open, not per message. Instant alerts go out for the groups you set to Instant, at most one every 30 minutes; anything else joins a digest that goes out at most every two hours and only mentions conversations that have been open for 20 minutes or more, so a thread you already answered drops out. Quiet hours hold alerts overnight (22:00–08:00 by default), and there is a hard cap of six notifications a day per workspace. Does the AI keep replying after I take over? No. As soon as you or a teammate replies on a conversation, from the Reachlee Inbox or straight from the Instagram app, the AI stays out of that thread for 48 hours, and the Needs you flag clears. You can also mute the AI on one thread from the Inbox, or pause it entirely. The only replies that don't clear a flag are the AI's own replies to a complaint or a request for a person; those stay open until a person answers. Does it work for Facebook Messenger too? Yes. Reachlee AI answers Messenger conversations on the Facebook Pages you connect, with the same knowledge, guardrails and Needs you flags as Instagram DMs, and both land in one Inbox. Facebook Pages are available from the Pro plan, and the AI itself needs Growth ($14/mo) or Business ($29/mo). Needs you covers DM conversations on both channels; replies the AI writes to public comments are listed in the Activity feed rather than flagged. Can my team handle the flagged conversations? Yes. Everyone in the workspace sees the Needs you chip and the flagged conversations in the shared Inbox, and anyone's reply clears the flag. Alerts themselves go to the workspace owner: the owner's email, plus the owner's Telegram chat if it is connected. The Business plan ($29/mo) includes 5 team seats, which is the usual setup when one person owns the account and others answer the DMs. What does it cost? Needs you is included in Reachlee AI on Growth at $14/mo, with 1,000 AI credits a month, or Business at $29/mo with 2,500\. Flags, email alerts and Telegram alerts don't use credits; a credit is spent only when the AI actually sends a reply. If you run out, the AI stops replying until the next month and you get one alert, so it never goes quiet without you knowing. Keep exploring ## More on Reachlee AI [Reachlee AIThe product page: DMs, comments and story replies answered from your knowledge.](/product/reachlee-ai/)[Instagram AI auto replyHow the AI decides what to answer and what to skip.](/ai/instagram-ai-auto-reply/)[AI knowledge baseWhat the AI is allowed to know and say.](/ai/knowledge-base/)[DM alerts on TelegramGet the conversations that need you as Telegram messages.](/use-cases/instagram-dm-notifications-telegram/)[AI PlaygroundTest the AI as a contact would, then teach it what it missed.](/ai/ai-playground/)[AI customer support in DMsAnswer support questions from your own policies.](/use-cases/ai-instagram-customer-support/) --- Source: https://www.reachlee.co/ai/human-handoff