Give Your AI More Capabilities

A great AI agent shouldn't only be able to talk. It should also be able to do things.

That's what AI Actions are designed for.

AI Actions give your agent a set of capabilities that it can use when a customer needs something beyond a normal conversational response. Instead of simply explaining how to book an appointment, for example, your AI can actually help with the appointment process when the appropriate capability is available.

Think of AI Actions as the abilities of your AI agent. Your AI provides the intelligence and understands what the customer wants, while Actions give it the ability to take the appropriate next step.

This turns your AI from a chatbot that only answers questions into an assistant that can actively help customers accomplish tasks.

BotLance provides a growing collection of capabilities that can be enabled for your AI agent. Depending on what's available in your workspace, your agent can work with things such as appointment scheduling, calendars, spreadsheets, ecommerce operations, conversation features, and other business tasks.

For example, an AI agent can recognize that a customer wants to book an appointment and use an available appointment capability instead of simply telling the customer how to book. It can work with supported calendar tools, interact with business data through spreadsheet capabilities, or use ecommerce-related capabilities when those are available.

You can also enable capabilities such as Suggested Messages, which help the AI provide useful follow-up suggestions during conversations.

BotLance is continuously expanding this system, so new AI Actions and capabilities can be added over time without changing the fundamental way your AI agent works.

The important part is that you don't need to manually tell your AI which Action to use every time a customer sends a message.

Your AI first understands the customer's intent and then determines whether one of its available capabilities is appropriate.

For example, a customer might say:

"I'd like to schedule a consultation for next Tuesday."

The AI understands that the customer is trying to schedule an appointment. If an appointment capability is available to the agent, it can use that capability as part of the conversation.

This makes Actions feel natural. Customers can simply explain what they want instead of learning how your underlying systems work.

AI Actions are designed to be simple to configure. When you open an available capability and select Connect, Manage, or Configure, the relevant setup appears directly on the screen.

You don't need to follow a separate documentation guide for every individual capability. BotLance provides the configuration where you need it, so you can enable a capability, complete its setup, and make it available to your AI agent from the same place.

The exact options depend on the capability you're configuring.

Sometimes your business needs an action that isn't included in the built-in capabilities. That's where Custom Actions come in.

Custom Actions allow you to extend your AI agent with your own logic and external systems using technologies such as APIs and webhooks. This makes it possible to connect your AI to business processes that are unique to your organization.

Because Custom Actions can be much more powerful and technical than standard capabilities, they have their own dedicated guide.

Learn more: Custom Actions

Some AI experiences also require the assistant to remember information throughout a conversation. For example, an agent may need to keep track of a customer's selections, values, scores, or other information while the conversation continues.

BotLance provides Stateful Variables for these types of experiences. They allow information to remain available and stay synchronized throughout a conversation.

Stateful Variables are a separate capability and are covered in detail in their own guide.

Learn more: Stateful Variables

AI Actions are an important part of how BotLance evolves beyond a traditional chatbot.

The goal is not to limit your AI to answering questions. As more capabilities become available, your agent can take on more responsibilities and interact with more parts of your business.

Today, that might mean scheduling an appointment, working with business data, or performing a specific task. Tomorrow, the same AI agent can gain entirely new capabilities as BotLance continues to expand the Action system.

Your AI understands the conversation. Actions give it the ability to act.