How to Turn an AI Agent Off or Back On
Turn off on an agent's page stops the agent at once for everybody. Open the menu, choose AI agents under Administration, press Open on the agent's line, and press Turn off at the foot of the agent's details. To stop one person using an agent instead, switch them off in the agent's Who may use list.
How do I turn an AI agent off?
Open the agent on the AI agents screen, press Turn off, and confirm with Turn it off.
- Open the menu and choose AI agents under Administration.
- Press Open on the agent's line.
- Press Turn off, beside Update configuration.
- Read the question that appears in its place, and press Turn it off, or Keep it on to change your mind.
The question says the agent "stops at once. The key and signing secret are forgotten here, and AgentDesk is not told; the list of who may use it stays at AgentDesk."
After Turn it off, the screen says, for example, "Victoria is off. Nothing reaches this agent until it is set up again." The agent's label becomes Off, and under Connection the API key reads "None: forgotten when it was turned off". The button Set it up again takes the place of Update configuration and Turn off.
Turning off always works, even if somebody changed the agent a moment earlier in another window.
What happens when an AI agent is turned off?
When you turn an agent off on the AI agents screen, ABM Service forgets the agent's key at once, so nothing can reach the agent through your server any more. Everything else is kept: the addresses, the organisation and project, and the agent's settings, such as its ticket customer or follow-up users.
AgentDesk is not told. The agent's list of people stays at AgentDesk as it was, but you cannot switch anybody on or off while the agent is off: the Who may use list says nobody can be switched until AgentDesk's list can be read, because the agent "is turned off, and its key was forgotten: set it up again first."
What people notice:
- Fiona — Log by voice disappears from the customer screen in ABM Service.
- Victoria — Log by voice disappears from the Customer portal.
- ABM Service AI — Fill in with AI and Voice note stay on the call screen, but pressing them says the AI assistant, meaning ABM Service AI, is not switched on here yet.
- Riley — the engineers’ mobile app can no longer sign engineers in to Riley, because it uses the key that has been forgotten.
- ABM Portal Doc Agent and ABM Doc Agent — a ticket they raise can no longer reach ABM Service, so no new ticket calls appear.
Calls that were already logged by an agent stay on the Calls list as they are.
How do I switch an AI agent back on after turning it off?
Open the agent on the AI agents screen and press Set it up again. The setup runs from the first step with the agent's addresses already filled in; check them, paste the key your supplier gave you on the API Key step, and press Save connection. The agent is switched on again from that moment.
If the key belongs to the same organisation and project as before, the address your server was registered at is remembered, and the Base Path step is already ticked: press Next. The settings you chose before are filled in on the later steps; press Done on the Summary step to finish.
The agent's list of people at AgentDesk was never changed, so when you set it up again with the same organisation and project, the people who were switched on before can use it again at once.
Can I stop just one person using an AI agent?
Yes. Instead of turning the whole agent off, open the agent on the AI agents screen and turn that person's Active switch off under Who may use. The agent goes on working for everybody else. For every agent except ABM Service AI, switching somebody off also unpairs any phone they had paired with that agent, and the screen asks before it does it. See How to Choose Who May Use an AI Agent.