AI Email Assistant for Shared Inboxes
The assistant reads every incoming message, pulls the facts out of your systems and puts a finished reply draft next to it. Whether it sends that draft itself is decided by a threshold you set per category – anything below it stays a draft.
Writing the reply is not the bottleneck
Most replies in a shared inbox are three sentences long. The time does not go into those three sentences, it goes into everything before them: which order is this about, what does the warehouse say, has the invoice gone out, and is anyone actually responsible or will nobody read this today? Someone working an info@ inbox opens three windows for an answer they could recite from memory.
That is exactly where automation gets difficult. A language model writes those three sentences effortlessly – and it writes them just as happily when it never found the order number. It does not fail loudly, it keeps composing. A fluent text is no evidence that the answer is correct. A delivery date wrongly promised in your name, sitting in your customer's inbox, costs more than the twenty minutes it saved.
The real work therefore sits in the question of when a draft may leave without a human, not in writing it. We derive the assistant's confidence from things that can be checked: was the sender matched to exactly one record, does every statement in the draft come from a connected source, does the message contain a single request? That produces a confidence score – and only a threshold you set per category decides whether it is sent.
Which emails are worth it
We start with the category that occurs most often and has the clearest source. Every further category later uses the same mechanics of draft, confidence score and threshold.
Order and delivery status
The most common case: where is my delivery? The answer sits in the ERP, not in anyone's head – the assistant fetches it and writes it down.
Sending documents again
Invoice copy, delivery note, data sheet, certificate. The assistant finds the file belonging to the record and attaches it – or says that it does not exist.
Confirming and moving appointments
The requested slot is checked against the calendar and two alternatives are added. Whether it books or only proposes depends on the category.
Standard answers from your knowledge base
Warranty period, payment terms, spare parts, directions: answers that are documented somewhere and still get typed out fresh every day.
Sorting what people have to handle
Complaints, cancellations, press, job applications: no draft, but category, urgency and owner are settled before anyone opens the message.
Internal inboxes
IT support, HR, purchase requests: the same mechanics turned inward, with far less risk – a good place to start.
One morning in a shared inbox
Five messages as the assistant prepared them: the mail on the left, the draft and its source in the middle, the confidence score against the category threshold on the right.
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M. Bergmann · order 4127 When is my delivery arriving? Order status
Your consignment left our warehouse on 24 July and is due for delivery on 29 July. The tracking number is 003401…
ERP · delivery note 4127-194threshold 90sent -
Accounts, Ritter Ltd Please resend invoice INV-20871 Document request
Attached is invoice INV-20871 of 8 July as a PDF. The outstanding amount is due on 7 August.
Document store · INV-20871.pdf96threshold 90sent -
S. Karadeniz · service contract Can we swap Monday for Thursday? Reschedule
Thursday works for us at 9:00 or 14:30. Let us know which suits and we will move the appointment.
Calendar · engineer North, week 3183threshold 85waiting for approval -
P. Ostermann · order 3988 Unit failed again after two weeks Complaint
Draft ready: receipt acknowledged, warranty runs to 03/2028, engineer visit proposed.
ERP · order 3988, warranty active91threshold: alwaysa person decides -
Purchasing, Halbach & Sons What does servicing twelve units cost? Pricing and discount
No draft. Prices are negotiated by sales, not by the assistant – the message goes to the North team with a summary.
Source not approved—never automaticforwarded
Row four is the instructive one: a high confidence score and still no send. Complaints are a blocked category, so the score is irrelevant there.
Row three sits two points below the threshold and waits, even though the draft looks usable. The calendar had reported only one of the two requested slots unambiguously, and that gap feeds straight into the confidence score.
From an incoming message to an approved reply
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Connect the inbox and fence it in
The assistant gets access to exactly one shared inbox, never to personal ones. Folders, labels or the recipient address decide which messages it sees at all.
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Identify the request and match the sender
Subject and body produce a category, an urgency and the references: customer, order or invoice number. Without an unambiguous match to a record there is no draft, only a question back.
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Fetch facts instead of composing them
Only what comes from a connected source may enter the draft – ERP, CRM, document store, knowledge base. Every statement carries the record it came from, visible internally.
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Score the confidence and apply the threshold
Matching, source coverage and how clear-cut the request is produce a number. Above the category threshold the reply goes out; below it, or in a blocked category, it stays a draft with the reason attached.
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Send, write the record, adjust
The reply leaves from the shared inbox and the record lands in your CRM or ticket system. Every human correction is logged – that is what you use each month to decide which threshold moves.
What changes day to day
Today
- Everyone reads the same inbox, nobody owns it
- One status answer means opening three systems
- Urgent messages sit between newsletters and invoices
- Reply quality depends on who happens to have time
- On Monday the inbox is full before anyone starts
With the assistant
- Every message arrives with category, owner and deadline
- The draft already carries the facts from your systems
- Routine answers are out before anyone has read them
- Uncertain cases sit as drafts, not as errors in sent items
- What went out is logged with its source and its score
Where the assistant stops
Four things this product does not solve. We raise them before the quote, not afterwards:
- Below a certain volume it does not pay off. If your shared inbox gets twenty messages a day and nearly every one is a one-off, you will spend more time on rules and checking than answering ever cost. It carries where a handful of categories cover most of the traffic. If that is not your situation we say so in the intro call – and you keep the €2,490.
- The confidence score measures evidence, not truth. It says how well an answer is covered by sources, not whether the record is right. If the ERP holds the wrong delivery date, the assistant will state it with complete composure and no threshold in the world will notice. That is why we start with categories where a mistake is embarrassing rather than expensive.
- What is written down nowhere cannot be answered. If the delivery date lives in a spreadsheet on someone's desktop or in the scheduler's head, there is no draft, only a question back. An inbox assistant makes the gaps in your master data visible within days. Useful, but rarely comfortable.
- Attachments and catch-all messages stay manual. A message with three separate requests, a chain forwarded twelve times, a photo of the broken part: the assistant deliberately does not answer these, it only files them. Reading attachments properly is a project of its own, not part of the entry price.
Fits your inbox
Scope and price
The entry price covers one shared inbox with up to five categories and one source of facts. What moves the price beyond that, we say before the quote.
- One shared inbox connected, for reading and sending
- Up to five categories, each with its own threshold and tone
- One source of facts for the drafts (ERP, CRM or knowledge base)
- Drafts placed in the inbox, with the source noted internally
- An approval route with a named owner per category
- A log of every decision: category, score, sent or approved
- Documentation, handover session and 30 days of support
What increases the price
- More than five categories, or several inboxes and sites
- Reading attachments rather than only the message body
- Replies in several languages, each reviewed in its own right
- Write actions: raising tickets, booking slots, starting returns
- Connecting an industry or legacy system with no usable interface
Several inboxes, reading attachments and write actions in your operational systems typically land in the range of our AI Agent Pilot package from €4,900. We quote the binding fixed price after the intro call.
All prices excl. VAT · operation and further development optionally via a support package
What you get
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A working assistant on your inbox
Connected, tested on real messages and signed off in writing
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Documented categories and thresholds
What each category may do and from which score – changeable without asking us
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Decision log
Per message: category, confidence score, source, sent or approved
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Handover and a first correction round
How your team approves, corrects and when a threshold should be moved
Frequently asked questions about the inbox assistant
These solutions fit alongside
AI Knowledge Base
The source behind the drafts: answers from approved documents, with the passage cited.
Process Email Attachments Automatically
For the part the assistant deliberately leaves out: invoices and delivery notes attached.
AI Chatbot for Customer Support
The same knowledge in another channel – for questions that never become an email.
Complaint Management Automation
The category that stays blocked here gets a process of its own there.
Which emails do you answer for the hundredth time?
In the free intro call we take one real morning out of your shared inbox and sort it into categories. Afterwards you know how much of it could be answered automatically at all – and whether that adds up for you.
Book a free intro callWhere AI email assistant creates value in everyday work
The assistant sorts email, detects intent, researches approved knowledge and prepares traceable replies or next steps.
Three concrete operating scenarios to compare with your own process.Prioritise the inbox
Intent, customer, urgency and responsible team are detected from content and context.
Prepare replies
Approved information is combined with sources into a reviewable draft.
Update business records
Tickets, CRM or tasks receive the relevant data without manual re-entry.
A strong fit when …
Recurring requests can be answered from approved knowledge while uncertain cases are handed to people with clear context.
- You handle recurring emails using repeatable rules.
- The intake, target system and accountable business role can be named clearly.
- Exceptions are allowed to remain visible and move to people deliberately.
Deliberate automation boundary
Sensitive, legally relevant or insufficiently supported answers remain drafts with sources for staff review.
Explore the technical approach and platformsEstimate time savings with your own volume
The calculator uses 5 minutes today and 2 minutes after automation as fixed example assumptions. It does not replace process analysis.
Illustrative estimate based on the visible assumptions — not a guarantee.