Front AI Explained (2026): Autopilot, AI Compose & Summarize

How Front groups its AI

Front organises its native AI into three buckets, and the grouping is worth learning because it predicts which features are passive and which cost money. Per Front's overview of AI features, the three categories are Analyze, Assist, and Automate.

Analyze is the AI that reads your conversations in the background. It includes Topics (auto-classifying conversations so you can see what people are writing in about), Smart QA (scoring conversation quality for coaching), and Smart CSAT (inferring a satisfaction score from the language of an interaction rather than only from survey responses). None of this replies to anyone — it labels and measures.

Assist is the AI that sits next to an agent while they work. This is the Copilot experience: suggested replies, Summarize, Compose, "ask your knowledge base," and translation. A human is always in the loop here; Assist speeds them up, it doesn't act on its own.

Automate is the one feature that actually acts without a human: Autopilot, Front's AI agent. This is the piece that drafts or sends a full reply to a customer on its own — and it is the piece that is gated behind an add-on and priced per resolution.

AI Compose and Copilot: the assist layer

Most of the day-to-day value teams get from Front AI lives in Copilot, the in-conversation assistant. Per Front's Copilot documentation, Copilot offers suggested replies drawn from past similar conversations and, optionally, your Front knowledge base and external knowledge sources — so an agent gets a jumpstart on a draft instead of a blank box.

Compose is the rewrite tool inside that experience. With one click an agent can make a message sound more professional or friendlier, fix typos, or change its length — a fast polish pass on text a human already wrote or accepted. There are two flavours: Compose for email and Compose for knowledge base (for drafting help-centre content). Front also offers Translate, which detects and translates language, though currently on email channels only.

The important framing: Compose and Copilot assist a human. They never send anything on their own. That is exactly why they are lower-risk and why Front bundles them into the Copilot side of AI rather than the per-resolution Autopilot side.

Summarize: shared context on long threads

Summarize is the quiet workhorse of a shared inbox, because email threads get long and everyone who picks one up otherwise has to read the whole history. Per Front's Summarize guide, the AI summary appears at the top of a conversation and, crucially, auto-updates: "the AI-provided summary automatically updates with every new message or new comment after the initial summary is generated." Because it lives on the conversation, teammates share the same summary rather than each re-reading independently — which is the whole point of a collaborative inbox.

There are real, citable limits worth knowing. Automatic summaries only kick in once an inbox is enabled and a conversation reaches four messages, and only for conversations created after the feature was turned on. Manual summaries — triggered from the three-dot menu in the conversation header — are capped at 200 per user per day. And Summarize itself rides on the Copilot or Autopilot add-on, so it is not automatically present on every plan.

As the settings screen above makes honest: base Front AI — Suggested replies, Topics, Smart QA, AI disclosure, and knowledge sources — is present and toggleable. Autopilot, though, is clearly marked "Add-on" with a "Get add-on" button — it is not part of the base trial, and you have to acquire it before the AI agent exists in your account.

Autopilot: the AI agent (and the add-on)

Autopilot is Front's actual AI agent — the only native piece that replies to customers autonomously. Per Front's Autopilot guide, it "automatically repl[ies] to conversations based on Topics" to "quickly resolve repetitive inquiries." It is an add-on that must be enabled for your company by an admin in the Front AI settings tab before it can be used.

Setup is Topic-driven. You go to workspace settings, open Topics, pick a Topic, and toggle on Enable auto-replies — which auto-generates an "Auto-reply with Autopilot" rule you can then customise (Autopilot lives inside the same Front rules engine that routes everything else). Knowledge sources are optional but, in Front's own words, "will drastically improve Autopilot performance" — you can connect Front knowledge bases, public websites, and third-party sources, up to 3,000 pages of content per source in English.

So the honest picture: Autopilot is a genuine AI agent, but it is (1) an extra you pay for, (2) scoped to the Topics you enable it on, and (3) grounded on the knowledge sources you connect.

AI Answers is gone — what replaced it, and what it costs

If you researched Front AI a year ago you may remember AI Answers, the chat-deflection feature. It is discontinued. Front's own AI Answers (legacy) page now opens with a plain notice — "AI Answers is no longer available for purchase" — and points existing users toward Autopilot Resolve to "automatically reply to chat messages using AI." In other words, the deflection job AI Answers used to do has been folded into Autopilot; there is no separate AI Answers product to buy anymore.

The pricing model came along for the ride, and it is per resolution. Legacy AI Answers was $0.70 per resolution, where a resolution was counted when a customer selected "Yes, that helped" or simply left the chat without responding to the confirmation prompt. Autopilot's resolution-based pricing is reported at roughly $0.89 per resolution by third-party trackers such as Featurebase's Front pricing breakdown — charged on top of your monthly plan, per automated resolution. Front's own plan tiers govern which base plan you need before the AI add-ons are even available; always confirm the current per-resolution figure in Front's contract, since these usage prices move.

The honest limits — and where an AI agent layer picks up

Credit where it is due: Front's native AI is coherent and well-scoped. Copilot genuinely speeds agents up, Summarize keeps a collaborative inbox in sync, and Autopilot is a real agent that can close repetitive tickets. For teams that want AI inside Front with minimal setup, it is a reasonable place to start.

But the ceiling is visible once you look. Autopilot is Topic-and-knowledge-shaped — it answers questions its knowledge sources cover, on the Topics you enable, and it is strongest on "repetitive inquiries." The moment a request needs to do something — look up this customer's actual order, check their real subscription status, issue a specific refund, or take a multi-step action against your own systems — a knowledge-grounded auto-reply is answering from documents, not from your live data. The Assist features never cross that line at all: they help a human, they don't act. And the whole agent tier is an add-on billed per resolution, which is fine, but it is worth pricing before you count on it.

This is the seam where an AI agent layer fits — not to replace Autopilot, but to do the reasoning-and-action-heavy work a document-grounded reply structurally can't. The broader category of AI agents for customer service exists precisely for that. Macha is one such layer: it runs on top of the Front you already use through the live Macha–Front connector — it does not replace Front, your inboxes, your rules, or Autopilot. You can keep Autopilot handling the Topics it is good at. Then a Macha agent reads a conversation, understands intent, and — through a custom tool that turns your REST API into something the agent can call — pulls a real order or account status and drafts or sends a grounded, action-backed reply. If you are weighing native AI against a dedicated layer, building an AI agent from scratch vs. on a platform is the honest comparison, and Macha's credits are consumed per AI action — never per resolution — because automation and reasoning have different costs and it is fair to price them that way.

The clean division of labour: let Front's Copilot assist your agents and let Autopilot deflect the repetitive Topics, then layer additional agents on top for the reads-and-acts work a knowledge reply can't do. For the surrounding system, see the Front shared inbox model and how to connect Front to Macha to route conversations to AI.

FAQ

What is Front AI, exactly? Front AI is a family of native features grouped into three buckets: Analyze (Topics, Smart QA, Smart CSAT), Assist (Copilot suggested replies, Compose, Summarize, ask your knowledge base, Translate), and Automate (Autopilot, the AI agent). Only Autopilot replies to customers autonomously; everything in Assist keeps a human in the loop.

Is Front Autopilot included in my plan? No. Autopilot is an add-on. In the Front AI settings it appears marked "Add-on" with a "Get add-on" button and must be enabled for your company by an admin before it can be used — it is not part of the base trial. It is also billed per resolution on top of your monthly plan.

What happened to Front AI Answers? Front discontinued it. The AI Answers legacy help page states "AI Answers is no longer available for purchase" and directs users to Autopilot Resolve to automatically reply to chat messages. The chat-deflection job moved into Autopilot; there is no standalone AI Answers to buy anymore.

How much does Front Autopilot cost? Autopilot uses per-resolution pricing on top of your plan. Legacy AI Answers was $0.70 per resolution; Autopilot is reported at roughly $0.89 per resolution by third-party trackers. Confirm the current figure in Front's own pricing, since usage rates change.

Can I add more AI to Front without replacing it? Yes. An AI agent layer like Macha connects to Front as a live connector and runs on top of your existing inboxes, rules, and even Autopilot — it doesn't replace them. Your Front AI keeps assisting and deflecting; the added agents read a conversation, call your own systems through custom tools, and draft or send grounded, action-backed replies.

Ready to add agents that read your data and act on top of Front? Start a free trial of Macha and connect it to your Front in minutes.