A canned response is a pre-written reply that a support agent inserts into a conversation to answer a common question quickly and consistently. It is often called a macro or a saved reply, and it lives in the helpdesk so any agent can reuse it.
Canned responses save time on repetitive questions and keep wording on-brand and accurate. The tradeoff is that they still require a human to read the conversation, choose the right template, fill in the details, and send. They speed up typing, not judgment, and a library that is not maintained drifts out of date the same way a knowledge base does.
Aide, the agentic AI platform for customer experience, changes who finds the template. Instead of an agent scanning a macro library mid-conversation, Aide classifies the message to an intent and surfaces the saved replies and macros that fit, ready to apply in one click. Where the team has scoped and tested an intent, it goes further: the right response goes out with the details filled from the customer's actual order or account, or the issue is resolved outright. The template library stops being something agents search and becomes something the system applies at the right moment.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a canned response the same as a macro?
- Largely, yes. Macro, saved reply, and template are common names for the same thing: a stored block of text an agent inserts into a conversation.
- Do canned responses use AI?
- On their own, no. They are static text chosen and sent by a human. AI systems can go further by classifying intent and resolving the issue rather than just suggesting a template.
- How is Aide different from a canned response?
- A canned response waits for a person to find it. Aide detects the intent and either suggests the fitting response to the agent in one click or, for intents the team has tested, sends it and resolves the issue end to end.