In the world of Customer Service and Operations, the “Status Update” email is a persistent drain on productivity. Historically, even with good automation, a human agent still had to review a draft, verify the data, and hit “Send.”
I recently configured a Pega Agentic Email Bot that changes this dynamic entirely. By moving to an autonomous model, we’ve enabled the system to handle employee onboarding inquiries with zero human intervention.
The Shift: From “Suggested” to “Agentic”
Traditional email bots are reactive – they categorise and route. Agentic AI is proactive – it understands the intent, accesses the necessary tools (data transforms, reports, or cases), and completes the task.
In my recent use case for Employee Onboarding, the bot doesn’t just “read” an inquiry; it acts as a digital coordinator.
Technical Deep Dive: How to Configure the Agent
Setting up an autonomous agent in Pega is surprisingly streamlined if you know where the toggles are. Here is the high-level configuration path I followed:
1. Activating the “Brain”
The first step is to enable the AgenticEmail toggle. This unlocks the Generative AI capabilities specifically designed for email interaction.
2. Creating the AgenticEmail & Onboarding Agent
In the App Studio, you define the AI Agent, which I already configured as part of my earlier article How I designed a Multi-Agent Onboarding System with Pega GenAI™ (Go through this, if you haven’t, to understand the GenAI Agent part)
Create AgenticEmail and set up all Email Account configurations. Beyond the traditional Email Channel, you must:
- Check the box: “Enable automatic replies using the AI agent.”
- Set the Confidence Threshold: This ensures the bot only replies autonomously when it is certain of the intent.
The Workflow in Action
When a new hire sends an email about their queries via their email channel, the following happens:
- Intent Analysis: The Agentic AI identifies the sender and the specific request.
- Tool Execution: The bot does its job as per the defined logics
- Autonomous Response: It drafts a personalised, context-aware reply and sends it immediately
Think & Grow with PegaOOTB 