Multilingual enquiries: when an AI Agent should hand over to a human
Hand over a multilingual enquiry when the answer lacks approved support, the customer asks for a person, or the next step requires judgement or authority the agent does not have. Review the risk and ownership of the request before considering a language-quality score.
The following is a proposed operating rule, not a product specification or a validated threshold. A model saying it is confident is not proof that its answer is reliable.
Apply the highest-priority rule first
| Priority | Condition | Proposed response |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A safety-sensitive, regulated or otherwise restricted matter requires a responsible reviewer | Stop substantive advice or commitments and route to the designated reviewer |
| 2 | The customer asks for a person, or the action exceeds granted authority | Route to the appropriate owner; do not make the requested commitment |
| 3 | Approved information is missing, conflicting or not adequately understood in the customer's language | Explain the limitation and hand over with the unresolved question |
| 4 | A commercially important enquiry needs an owner for the next step | Assign or notify the sales owner; continue only the explicitly permitted assistance |
| 5 | The routine request is within scope and supported by approved information | Answer within scope and retain the appropriate record |
Define restricted topics and owners before launch. Do not ask the agent to invent a compliance policy. Commercial priority must not override a safety or authorisation boundary.
Evaluate each language with reviewed examples
- Choose representative enquiries for each supported language, with sensitive information removed.
- Ask a suitable reviewer to label acceptable answers and required handovers.
- Test fact preservation, terminology, ambiguity handling and handover context, not fluency alone.
- If a scoring signal is available, check it against those labelled outcomes before using it. Do not assume self-reported confidence is calibrated.
- Agree acceptance criteria and unacceptable failures for each workflow and language; do not import a universal percentage.
- Retest after changes to knowledge, models or routing rules.
For example, a Cantonese enquiry may request a large order and ask for a safety certification absent from approved records. The sales opportunity is worth assigning, but order value does not justify inventing a certification. Send the owner the original request, a clearly labelled translation if needed, the missing evidence and any commitments already made. This is an illustrative scenario, not a customer case.
Make handover usable
A handover should name the destination, reason and outstanding question, and preserve the customer's preferred language. Agree service hours, acknowledgement and a fallback for an unavailable owner. Do not promise an immediate human response unless the operating team can support it. Minimise personal data and follow the project's approved retention rules.
Company context and limits
AIagent's public EAS overview describes multilingual enquiry handling and routing opportunities to sales owners. It also describes pilots with explicit scope and responsibility. These are company statements, not evidence for a particular language score or handover threshold. See the company overview.
This method is not legal advice and does not guarantee conversion or language accuracy. Specific routing, review and service arrangements must be agreed for the pilot.