Autopilot is Twilio’s new conversational AI platform for building bots, IVRs, voice assistants, and more. Autopilot combines Twilio’s Natural Language Understanding engine and new Autopilot Actions API to help you effectively classify customer issues with sophisticated self-service workflows. Best of all, Autopilot is a true omni-channel product that works across our communications products - voice, messaging, and more! Here’s what you need to know to get started.
How Does Autopilot Work?
Each Autopilot flow is called an Assistant. Assistants are comprised of a number of components including tasks, fields, samples, and models.
- Tasks are the building blocks for assistants, where you use the Autopilot Actions API to define capabilities and build out your assistant’s script.
- Fields are used to help the natural language router identify task inputs, and tie them to samples.
- Samples are used to help train your assistant to recognize inputs, and point to to the right task.
- Models are trained natural language routing engines that take into consideration your tasks, samples, and fields.
Autopilot Actions
Actions are how you tell your assistant what to say, show, remember, and more. Most importantly, the listen action lets your task know to expect speech or text to process. For a full list of actions, please see Building Tasks with Autopilot Actions (Twilio Docs).
Configure Phone Number to Respond with an Autopilot Assistant
Autopilot assistants can be set to answer incoming contacts on your Twilio number just like a webhook url would be. To find the url for your assistant, visit the Autopilot page in Console, and then select your assistant - the url will be found under the Channels heading. Once you have the url, here’s how to route your Twilio number to your assistant from Console:
- Login to your account at www.twilio.com/console.
- Click Phone Numbers
from the left-side navigation bar.
Note: If Phone Numbers is not visible, you may first need to click All Products & Services. - Click the desired phone number to modify.
- Scroll to the desired section, and then modify the phone number’s routing and click Save.
- Voice Calls
- ACCEPT INCOMING: Voice Calls
- CONFIGURE WITH: Webhooks, TwiML Bins, Functions, Studio, or Proxy
- A CALL COMES IN: Webhook
- INPUT FIELD: Enter the URL for your assistant - https://channels.autopilot.twilio.com/v1/ACXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/twilio-voice
- Messaging
- CONFIGURE WITH: Webhooks, TwiML Bins, Functions, Studio, or Proxy
- A MESSAGE COMES IN: Webhook
- INPUT FIELD: Enter the URL for your assistant - https://channels.autopilot.twilio.com/v1/ACXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/twilio-messaging
- Voice Calls