Two separate gates, for two very different situations. Both live under Settings → AI & Engagement. Read this whole article before turning either on: they change what the assistant says at the worst possible moment for it to be wrong.
Crisis safety — for visitors in distress
For sensitive intake: mental health, healthcare, anything where a visitor might be in acute distress.
When it's on, the assistant screens each visitor message for distress before replying. On a trigger it:
- shows your crisis resources,
- makes clear it's an intake assistant, not a counselor,
- flags the conversation,
- alerts your team to take over.
With crisis safety enabled, all AI answers also avoid clinical advice.
Add at least one resource. Under Crisis resources, add the lines and links that are valid for your region — a label (988 Lifeline), a phone number or link, and an optional note. Set your Region to help it choose appropriately. With no resources set, a visitor in distress is simply told to contact local emergency services, which is a much worse outcome than a real, local crisis line.
Flagged conversations are collected under Analytics → ⚠️ Flagged for risk. Review them and follow up with a person where appropriate — that list is not decoration.
Emergency escalation — for real-world emergencies
For verticals with physical emergencies: trades, veterinary, property management.
When it's on, the assistant watches for your emergency keywords. On a match
it tells the visitor to call 911, flags the conversation, alerts your team, and
sends a chat.emergency webhook you can wire to your on-call phone through an
outbound integration.
Add your keywords, one per line or comma-separated. They're matched at the
start of a word, so poison also catches poisoned:
gas leak
smoke
burst pipe
no heat
With no keywords set, the gate can't fire.
You can add an optional visitor message shown after the "call 911 if life-threatening" line — which is always included and can't be removed. Use it to say what happens next: "I've alerted our team so someone can reach you as quickly as possible."
What these are not
Both are fast alerting, not a guaranteed dispatch service, and neither is a substitute for a real emergency line. They reduce the time between a visitor typing something alarming and a human seeing it. They do not guarantee that a human sees it, and they should never be your only safety net.
If your business needs a guaranteed response path, publish the phone number that provides it and make sure the assistant surfaces it.
Which do I use for a temporary closure?
Neither — that's an Urgent notice. Safety gates are for danger; urgent notices are for facts that expire.