Connecting a mailbox to AI: an inbox that prepares itself
You can connect a real mailbox to IntraGPT, info@ or orders@ for instance. The assistant reads new messages, gathers the context and writes a reply. You decide whether that reply waits as a draft for a colleague or goes straight back in the same thread. The connection works with any mail provider that supports ordinary mail settings.
What happens to incoming mail
Picking up new messages
The assistant watches the folder you point it at and picks up new messages. Only mail arriving after the connection counts, so there is no risk of it working through the entire archive.
Preparing a reply
It reads the question, pulls in what it needs from the connected knowledge and writes a reply in the tone you agreed. When information is missing it says so instead of assuming something.
Draft or send independently
In draft mode the reply waits and whoever handles the inbox gets a notification. In independent mode the reply goes back in the same thread, so the sender sees an ordinary response.
Looking in the inbox on request
When the connection is set to on-demand the assistant does nothing by itself, but it can search the inbox when somebody asks in a conversation what that customer sent earlier.
A reply in the same thread
A sent reply stays attached to the original message, so the sender does not receive a loose message that fits nowhere and colleagues see the exchange in one place.
Inboxes that benefit from this
Customer service
- Situation
- The general address receives the same questions about delivery times and returns every day.
- What the agent does
- The assistant writes a draft per message with the right details attached, ready to be checked.
- Result
- The agent reads and sends, instead of phrasing the same thing from scratch every time.
Inside sales
- Situation
- Enquiries arrive by mail and have to be turned into a quote request with the right details.
- What the agent does
- The assistant takes the missing details from the message, asks for them when they are absent and gets it ready.
- Result
- Enquiries that move on complete, with less back and forth.
HR
- Situation
- Applications and questions about terms of employment arrive mixed together at the same address.
- What the agent does
- The assistant answers the standard questions independently and leaves everything personal waiting as a draft.
- Result
- A quick response on the simple part, without sensitive mail leaving the building unseen.
Facilities
- Situation
- Reports about buildings arrive as free text and often lack the location.
- What the agent does
- The assistant replies with the missing questions and completes the report as soon as the answer comes in.
- Result
- Reports that are usable by the time somebody picks them up.
How you switch an inbox on
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1
Connecting the mailbox
You supply the mailbox details and choose the folder to watch. The password is kept shielded and cannot be read back afterwards, not even by an administrator.
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2
Choosing the assistant
You attach an assistant, and with it the knowledge it may use and the tone it writes in. An inbox for customers gets a different assistant from an internal one.
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3
Setting two switches
The first decides when the assistant gets to work: on every message or only on request. The second decides whether the reply waits as a draft or goes back independently. Those two are separate.
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4
Watching and adjusting
What comes in and what the assistant makes of it can be reviewed in the environment. If collecting mail goes wrong, that is shown with the mailbox instead of staying silent.
Email is sensitive, so this is settled up front
An inbox holds personal data, complaints and sometimes medical or financial information. The main decision is therefore not technical but organisational: does anything leave the building by itself.
Where the data lives: Nederland of de EU
Draft is the safe setting
In draft mode nothing leaves without a human having seen it. Many organisations keep it that way for all mail involving individuals.
Credentials shielded
The mailbox details are stored encrypted and are no longer visible after entry. If you want to change them, you enter them again.
No archive, no duplicate handling
The assistant starts at the moment of connecting and does not look back into old mail. Each message is also picked up only once, even when something goes wrong and collection restarts.
Processing on our own server
Composing replies happens on our own server in the Netherlands. The content of the mail does not travel to an American model vendor and is not used for training.
Questions about the mailbox connection
Could mail go out by accident?
Not in draft mode. The assistant writes a proposal, it stays put and whoever handles the inbox gets a notification. Only when you deliberately switch a mailbox to independent mode does a reply go back on its own. You make that choice per mailbox, not once for everything.
Does the assistant read my whole archive?
No. On connecting, the starting point is set at the most recent mail, so only messages arriving afterwards are picked up. Old mail is left alone. That also helps while testing, because you can switch on calmly without a thousand messages being processed at once.
Does it work with our own mail address?
Yes, as long as the mailbox supports ordinary mail access, which virtually every provider does. You supply the details you would also enter in a mail programme. For a mailbox in Microsoft 365 there is the Outlook connector as well; which one fits depends on what you want to achieve.
What is the difference with the Outlook connector?
With Outlook the assistant looks into an existing mailbox on request, to find something during a conversation for instance. Here the mailbox itself is the working channel: an assistant sits behind it, picks up new mail and prepares replies. That is a different kind of deployment, and they do not exclude each other.
What happens when the password changes?
Then collecting mail fails and you see that with the mailbox, with the error message attached. The connection does not keep retrying endlessly and no mail gets lost: as soon as the details are correct it continues where it left off.
Can I connect several mailboxes?
Yes, and it is often the sensible thing to do. Info, orders and support then each get their own assistant with their own knowledge and their own setting for draft or independent. That way you choose per mailbox how much freedom there is.
What does a mailbox connection cost?
Connecting is part of the track we go through together. What drives the work is the number of mailboxes, the knowledge attached to them and whether independent replies are allowed. Thirty minutes is enough to know what is needed.
How long does setup take?
Connecting itself takes minutes. The time goes into agreeing the tone and deciding which kinds of messages may and may not be handled independently. That is exactly the conversation you want to have before any mail goes out.