eChat's job today is simple: it acts as an AI moderator inside your eWebinar's live chat, answering attendee questions in real time alongside your human team. Before it can do that, you need to connect an eChat Agent to the eWebinar you want it to help with.
Connecting takes a couple of clicks, and you can do it from either product. You can also link one agent to as many eWebinars as you like — the agent automatically figures out which webinar each attendee is on and answers from that webinar's own material, so you never have to configure anything per session.
This article covers how the connection itself works, how one agent can cover several eWebinars without getting confused, what each webinar still needs on the eWebinar side for human hand-off, and how the agent behaves once it's sitting in the chat room next to your human moderators.
How linking works
What it is
Linking connects one eChat Agent to one eWebinar, which adds the agent to that webinar's live chat as a moderator. Each webinar can have only one eChat agent as its AI moderator.
How it works
There are two ways to start, and they both end up in the same place:
- From eWebinar: open the webinar you want covered, go to its Moderators settings, and add the agent as a moderator the same way you'd add a human co-host.
- From eChat: open the agent, go to Deploy, then the eWebinars tab, and choose which webinar or webinars to connect it to.
Either direction works, and either screen can hand you off to the other to finish the job. For example, if you start from eWebinar's Moderators settings and the agent isn't fully set up on the eChat side yet, that screen links you over to eChat to finish; start from eChat's Deploy > eWebinars tab and it links you over to the right webinar's Moderators settings if that side needs attention.
When you arrive in Deploy from an eWebinar deep link, that originating webinar is pinned at the top of the picker so you can find it immediately - without rewriting the order of webinars you've already saved. Once any webinars are selected, the selected list starts expanded so you can confirm or remove them, and saving uses Save eWebinar Selection.
Best practices
Finish setting up the agent — Instructions, Product, and at least some Training — before connecting it to a live webinar, so it has something to answer with from the first chat message. If you're connecting the same agent to a lot of webinars at once, do it from eChat's Deploy > eWebinars tab rather than webinar by webinar — it shows the full list in one place and is faster for bulk connecting.
Prerequisites for human hand-off
What it is
Linking an agent is enough for it to answer in chat. Letting attendees ask for a live person still depends on how that webinar is staffed and notified in eWebinar.
How it works
If the agent hands off to people, each connected webinar also needs an assigned moderator and first-message notifications (email, SMS, or Slack) in eWebinar before attendees can ask for a human. Deploy's helper copy on the selected-webinar list spells that out once you have webinars selected. Without those pieces, eWebinar turns off attendee escalation for that webinar even if your agent's mode is Human hand-off — and the agent's Escalation settings show a notice when some or all linked webinars have escalation turned off. The same AI moderator settings in eWebinar also hold Only allow escalations when a human moderator is available and the wait time, AI answers if a human doesn't answer in … sec, which gives your moderators the first word on new questions. See Working with Human Moderators for the modes, the wait time, and how hand-offs work.
Best practices
After linking, open each webinar's Moderators settings and confirm a human is assigned and that first-message notifications are configured - especially before your first live session that relies on hand-off. While you're there, check the wait time suits how that webinar is staffed.
One agent, several eWebinars
What it is
A single agent isn't limited to one webinar. You can link it to as many eWebinars as you run, and it handles all of them at once.
How it works
Every message an attendee sends tells the agent exactly which webinar they're watching. The agent uses that automatically to pull the correct linked webinar's own Video Transcript and context for its reply — you don't pick a webinar for the agent to focus on, and you don't need a separate agent just to keep transcripts from crossing over. See Training: Video Transcript for how that transcript syncing and answering actually works.
Best practices
Link one agent to every webinar that represents the same underlying content — different session times or time zones of the same webinar, or a sales version and an onboarding version of the same webinar, are all good candidates for one agent. Keeping them together means you train the agent once and every version answers with the same knowledge and instructions.
One agent, one product
What it is
The exception to the rule above: an agent should stay focused on one product or topic, even though eChat will happily let you link it to any number of webinars.
How it works
Use the webinar itself to decide, not the agent limit:
- Keep webinars on the same agent when they're different cuts of the same product — different session times, a shorter recap version, a sales pitch and an onboarding walkthrough for that one product.
- Split into separate agents when the webinars are for genuinely different products, even if you run them from the same eWebinar account.
Best practices
If you sell more than one product and run webinars for each, give each product its own agent. Mixing products on one agent dilutes its Instructions, its Product summary, and its training material — it starts blending details from unrelated products instead of answering precisely. Starter, Pro, and Premium each include one agent, and extra agent slots are a $30/month add-on, so factor that into your plan if you're running webinars for several distinct products.
Checking connection status
What it is
The Deploy > eWebinars tab on an agent lists your webinars, with a badge showing the current status of each connection.
How it works
- Connected - this agent is the webinar's AI moderator and everything is working.
- Connects on save - you've selected the webinar here, and it will connect in eWebinar when you click Save eWebinar Selection.
- Configured, not connected - eChat still has the webinar on file for this agent, but the eWebinar side of the link needs attention — for example, someone removed the agent from that webinar's Moderators list, or the webinar was deleted and recreated. The agent won't appear in that webinar's live chat until the connection is repaired.
- eChat agent connected - a different eChat agent is already that webinar's AI moderator. The webinar can't be selected here until it's disconnected from the other agent.
Best practices
Check this tab after any cleanup of your eWebinars, cloning a webinar, or reorganizing moderators, and reconnect from whichever side is quicker — eWebinar's Moderators settings or eChat's Deploy > eWebinars tab.
Working alongside your moderators
What it is
Once connected, the agent isn't a separate bot bolted onto the side of your chat — it's a moderator in the same room as your human team, answering messages right alongside them. That's especially useful for:
- Letting the agent take the volume of repeat questions so your human moderators can focus on the ones that need a person.
- Running webinars at times your team isn't available to moderate live, without leaving attendees unanswered.
- Keeping a human in the loop on anything sensitive, while the agent handles everything routine.
How it works
The agent works like a peer on your moderator team. It knows which of your moderators are on the webinar and whether they're available, gives them the first word on new questions for as long as the webinar's wait time allows, and steps back when one of them replies or starts typing. Like a human colleague, it can flag a specific attendee message as Needs reply for your team and leave a private note visible only to moderators — and then keep helping the attendee. Neither flags nor notes are visible to the visitor; they only ever see the agent's normal replies in the chat. Flagging isn't a hand-off: only with Human hand-off, and only when eWebinar allows it on that webinar, can the agent pass a conversation to a person. For the full picture, see Working with Human Moderators.
Best practices
Use the Needs reply filter in the eWebinar inbox as your team's to-do list during and after sessions — a flag only helps if someone checks it. Use private notes for context worth keeping for your team (a recurring objection, a lead worth following up) rather than relying on memory after the webinar ends, and to steer the agent on a conversation without the attendee seeing.
How the AI answers
What it is
Once the agent is in the room, it answers attendee activity the way a sharp moderator would — catching up on a burst of unanswered messages in one go, speaking to poll and question-card answers when that helps, and staying quiet when it shouldn't interrupt.
How it works
Full unanswered bursts. When several attendee messages pile up since the last moderator or AI reply, the agent answers all of them in a single turn — not only the most recent message. That keeps earlier questions from sitting unanswered while someone typed a follow-up.
Poll, quiz, and question cards. When an attendee answers a poll, quiz, or question card in the webinar, eChat treats that as attendee interaction the agent can see. The agent may tailor a reply to what they chose, but it will not:
- list their answers back to them
- quote the card's formatting
- open by remarking on the card itself
- claim they said it in chat
- treat the card answer as a question, a consent reply, or a request for a human
Notify-moderators cards. When a card has notify moderators turned on, eWebinar also notifies the AI moderator — not only your human team. The agent can reply right away while the attendee is still watching, or stay silent when speaking would not help (for example an empty or "no thanks" answer, ground an earlier reply already covered, or a conversation already in progress). If the attendee also has unanswered typed chat messages, those take priority: a typed question outranks a card, and the turn runs as an ordinary chat reply.
When the agent stays silent on a notify-moderators card, nothing new is posted in chat — the interaction answer stays the only record — and no escalation is started. The model still ran, so credits are still used; see Plans, Credits & Usage.
Card answers also stay out of escalation handoff notes — only real moderator notes are included when the agent leaves context for your team. See Working with Human Moderators.
Best practices
If attendees tend to send short follow-ups in a flurry, you can trust the agent to cover the whole burst rather than waiting for someone to re-ask the earlier question. For polls and quizzes with notify moderators on, silence is intentional when the answer gives the agent nothing useful to say — not a miss. Write card prompts that invite a useful follow-up in chat (interest, preference, readiness) when you want the agent to lean in.