AI Request Classification
Automatic classification, routing, and prioritization of incoming requests using Sera AI.
AI request classification automatically determines the Category, Impact, Service Instance, and Team for incoming requests. This reduces misrouted tickets, accelerates response times, and ensures requests reach the right specialists without manual triage.
How it works
When a request enters the system (whether submitted by a user, created by the Virtual Agent, or received via email), Sera AI analyzes the request content and context. Using historical request data and the organization's service catalog configuration, it determines appropriate values for:
- Category: The type of request (Incident, RFC, RFI, Complaint, etc.)
- Impact: The urgency and scope of the request
- Service Instance: The specific service affected
- Team: The team responsible for handling the request
Classification happens within seconds of request submission. When a request is created through the Virtual Agent, the assigned category and service instance typically appear on the request card almost immediately.
Suggest vs. apply mode
In the Account Settings, administrators can choose how classification behaves:
- Suggest mode: Sera AI proposes values for Category, Impact, Service Instance, and Team on requests with category "Other." A specialist reviews and confirms before the values are applied.
- Apply mode: Sera AI automatically sets these field values. Specialists can still override if needed.
Organizations can start with Suggest mode to build confidence in classification accuracy, then switch to Apply when ready.
Triage and prioritization
The combination of fields that AI classification sets on arrival effectively automates triage. When a request enters the system and Sera AI assigns Category, Impact, Service Instance, and Team within seconds, the request is triaged without a specialist touching it.
Impact drives priority. The Impact value assigned by Sera AI directly influences the request's priority and, by extension, the SLA targets that apply. A request classified as high impact is immediately subject to shorter response and resolution targets than one classified as low impact. This means the urgency of a request is established at the moment it enters the system, not when a specialist first opens it.
Team assignment eliminates routing delays. By identifying the responsible team automatically, classification removes one of the most common causes of slow triage: requests sitting in a general queue waiting for someone to read them and decide where they should go. The request lands directly in the right team's inbox.
Sentiment adds a prioritization signal. Within the team's inbox, Sera AI's sentiment analysis provides an additional layer. When a specialist has multiple requests with similar resolution targets, a negative sentiment indicator can help them decide which to address first. See AI Sentiment Analysis for details.
Automation rules extend triage logic. For organizations that want to go further, automation rules can act on classification results to implement custom triage workflows. For example, a rule could automatically escalate requests where Impact is high and the affected service is business-critical, or notify a manager when a cluster of similar requests is detected within a short time window.
When to use automation rules vs. AI classification
Automation rules and AI classification serve different needs:
- Automation rules are best for standard, repeatable classification scenarios where you can define clear patterns (for example, "all requests containing 'password reset' should be categorized as Incident").
- AI classification adds the most value for less structured scenarios where the correct routing depends on understanding the meaning and context of the request content, not just matching keywords.
Both can be used together. For example, automation rules can handle well-defined patterns while AI classification catches everything else.
Using ai_similar_request in automation rules
The ai_similar_request expression is available for use in automation rules. It allows rules to reference AI-determined similarity to classify or route requests based on historical patterns. See AI Similar Requests and Ticket Clustering for details.
Classification scope
Classification works across all ticket categories, not just incidents. The AI takes category into account when determining which actions are most relevant for a given request. Classification rules can operate across tickets depending on the specialist's access rights and how the rule is configured; they are not limited to a single specialist's inbox.