Help Scout is a customer support platform that helps businesses connect with their customers through help desk software, knowledge bases, and omni-channel communication tools. During my time at Help Scout, I led the design of their AI initiatives like conversational AI that lets customers ask questions naturally and get instant answers, to AI-powered draft generation that helps agents work smarter and faster. My work focused on creating delightful AI experiences that enhance the human touch.
With AI becoming central to modern tech experiences, there was a clear opportunity to transform how customers interact with support resources. The challenge was designing an AI solution that felt natural, trustworthy, and seamlessly integrated with existing support workflows while staying true to the customer-centered approach Help Scout is known for.
I led the design of Help Scout's conversational AI experience, replacing static searches with natural language conversations that let customers ask questions and receive contextual, source-referenced answers. The solution included four key innovations: conversational UX that enabled back-and-forth dialogue instead of one-off searches, contextual answers that showed users exactly where information came from to build trust, intelligent escalation to human support when sentiment analysis detected frustration or complex needs, and comprehensive management tools that gave support teams visibility into AI interactions and performance through integrated reporting and inbox workflows.
We had the opportunity to evolve our AI draft experience to the next phase. Previously, users could only generate a draft and then had to manually edit it once completed. In this next phase, users can not only generate the draft but also use AI to improve the content based on their feedback and additional context all within the Inbox reply experience.
At the click of a button, users can generate a draft instantly. From there, they have two paths: insert the draft directly into the composer or provide additional feedback to refine it further. I leveraged Help Scout's established AI branding throughout the experience to clearly communicate the AI functionality, while incorporating thoughtful animations and interactions that make the experience feel magical and delightful.