Action Plans & HITL
Action Plans
Section titled “Action Plans”After analyzing a conversation, Heard’s AI generates an action plan, which is a specific, step-by-step recommendation detailing what to do next.
Example Action Plan
Section titled “Example Action Plan”Customer: Acme Corp (Sarah Chen), who called about a billing error on their March invoice.
Plan:
- Send an apology email acknowledging the billing discrepancy
- Credit $450 to their account
- Notify the Billing team lead in Slack
Action plans aren’t vague suggestions like “follow up with the customer.” They’re concrete actions grounded in the team’s playbook, ready to execute.
Human-in-the-Loop (HITL)
Section titled “Human-in-the-Loop (HITL)”The HITL system gives admins full control over how much the AI can do on its own. Different actions get different levels of autonomy.
The Four Levels
Section titled “The Four Levels”| Level | Name | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous | Just do it | AI executes immediately. Logged to the audit trail, but no human needed. |
| Time Bomb | Do it unless stopped | AI drafts the action, starts a countdown timer. If no one intervenes → auto-executes. |
| Human Approval | Ask first | AI drafts the action and waits. A human must click “Approve” to execute. |
| Advisory | Suggest only | AI shows the recommendation. It never executes anything and is purely informational. |
How Time Bombs Work
Section titled “How Time Bombs Work”Time Bombs are Heard’s unique middle ground between full autonomy and full control:
- The AI drafts an action (e.g., “Send follow-up email to Acme Corp”)
- A countdown starts, which is configurable from 1 to 72 hours
- The team gets notifications:
- When the timer starts
- At 50% remaining
- At 10% remaining
- 1 hour before execution
- Any team member can:
- Approve the action to execute immediately without waiting for the timer
- Hold to pause the timer indefinitely (which switches the action to Human Approval)
- Reject to cancel the action entirely
- If nobody acts → the action executes automatically when the timer expires
Setting HITL Rules
Section titled “Setting HITL Rules”Admins configure HITL rules per team, per action type. Common setup:
| Action Type | HITL Level | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Send onboarding guide email | Autonomous | Low risk, routine |
| Send follow-up email | Time Bomb (4 hours) | Low risk, but human might want to personalize |
| Issue refund under $50 | Time Bomb (24 hours) | Small dollar, but financial |
| Issue refund over $500 | Human Approval | High dollar value |
| Send legal notice | Advisory Only | Compliance-sensitive |
Dollar Threshold Overrides
Section titled “Dollar Threshold Overrides”For financial actions, admins can set threshold rules that override the default:
- “Refunds under $50 → Autonomous”
- “Refunds $50–$500 → Time Bomb”
- “Refunds over $500 → Human Approval”
This allows the same action type to have different autonomy levels based on the stakes.