# How Tolkly answers

> A source in every answer, an honest refusal, the AI mark, handoff to a person, what counts as resolved, and the AI limit.

The AI in your chat answers only from your own site's pages and shows where each answer comes from. When the bot cannot or should not answer, the conversation goes to your operators, in Telegram or the inbox in the app.

## Every answer has a source
- The AI looks for the answer in your knowledge base. That is the pages of your site we read ([Knowledge base](https://tolkly.io/docs/en/knowledge.md)).
- The answer is made of short sentences. Each sentence names its source and quotes it word for word. The visitor sees the quote under the sentence and a link to the page.
- Code, not the AI, checks each quote. If the quote is not on the page it names, the sentence is removed before the visitor sees it.
- A second check removes a sentence that adds a detail its sources lack.
- Under the answer, the visitor sees how many sentences were checked against the rules and how many were removed.

## When your pages do not cover it
The bot does not guess. If your pages have no answer, or no sentence passes the check, the bot says so: «I did not find this in the help pages and rules of the site.» Then it offers «Hand over to an operator».

## The visitor knows it is AI
- The chat's standard greeting says an AI assistant answers.
- The chat's header says «AI assistant».
- Each AI reply carries an «AI» mark.

When only people answer (the «Operators only» mode, [Who answers](https://tolkly.io/docs/en/handoff.md#who)), there is no AI mark, because no AI writes there.

## When a person takes over
The bot reads each message before it answers and understands it by meaning, not by keywords. The conversation goes to your operators, in Telegram or the inbox, when the visitor:

- asks for a person;
- asks about their own order or payment;
- writes about one of your topics for an operator.

When nobody can answer, the chat asks the visitor for a contact. What goes over when, who answers, in which hours, and how to set it up: [Handoff to people](https://tolkly.io/docs/en/handoff.md).

## What counts as resolved
Only the visitor decides:

- they press «It helped» under an AI answer;
- they answer «Yes» to «Did we solve your question?». The chat asks this after an operator closes the conversation.

Silence never counts. If the visitor read the answer and left, or the conversation went quiet and closed by itself, it is not resolved.

## When the AI limit is spent
Two limits stop the AI:

- **The company's month.** Your plan gives the company a number of AI conversations a month, for all its projects together. When they are spent, people answer until the next month starts ([When the limit is reached](https://tolkly.io/docs/en/billing.md#cap)).
- **A daily guard per project:** 300 answers with a checked source a day. The day starts at 00:00 UTC. Only answers that kept at least one checked sentence count; refusals and messages handed straight to people do not. A second daily guard counts all of the AI's work, refusals included, and works the same way.

Past either limit, people answer. The visitor reads «The AI assistant has reached its limit, so an operator will answer. Bringing one in.» The conversation goes to your operators marked «AI limit spent» in the app and «The AI limit is spent» in Telegram. Nothing extra is charged.