Intent Categories
Intent categories define the types of customer requests your AI model recognizes. Helpdesk ships with built-in intents and lets you create custom ones tailored to your business.
How intents work
When a ticket is classified, the AI assigns an intent from your active categories. The intent describes what the customer wants — for example, “billing inquiry”, “feature request”, or “account cancellation”.
Intents can be used in triggers and automations to route tickets, assign tags, or trigger specific workflows.
Custom intent categories
Create custom intents to match your business vocabulary:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Display name (up to 100 characters) |
| Slug | Unique identifier (lowercase, alphanumeric + underscore, up to 100 characters) |
| Description | What this intent represents (up to 500 characters) |
| Examples | 3-10 example phrases that represent this intent (up to 500 characters each) |
Examples are critical — they teach the AI model what this intent looks like. Provide diverse, realistic examples that cover the range of ways customers might express this intent.
Starter packs
Helpdesk provides pre-built starter packs with common intent categories for different industries. Apply a starter pack to quickly bootstrap your intent taxonomy.
To apply a starter pack:
- Navigate to Settings > Intent Categories
- Click Starter Packs
- Choose a pack and click Apply
- Optionally skip duplicates if you already have similar intents
Managing intents
- Reorder — Drag intents to change their display order
- Activate/Deactivate — Inactive intents are excluded from classification but retained for history
- Check dependencies — Before deleting, check if any triggers or automations reference the intent
Related
- AI Ticket Classification — overview of AI classification
- Agent Corrections — correct AI intent predictions