Rookery
Rookery writes

Choose how much Rookery may do on its own

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At first, every reply Rookery writes waits for your yes. As you come to trust it with a kind of email, like order updates, you can let it do more. You choose this one topic at a time, and only a person can change it.

The four levels

  • Suggest: Rookery only leaves its idea for a reply as a note in the conversation.
  • Draft: Rookery writes the reply, and it waits for you in Needs your yes. This is where every topic starts.
  • Send with undo: Rookery sends the reply by itself after a 10-minute undo window.
  • Autonomous: Rookery sends the reply by itself after a 30-second undo window.

Change a level

  1. Go to Settings → Helpers. Only owners and admins can change topics.
  2. In the Rookery section, under Writing, find Autonomy by topic.
  3. Each topic has its own row: Order status, Damaged item, Refund request, Billing, Warranty, Sales lead and General.
  4. Click the level you want for that topic.

Mail from your own addresses or a teammate's is sorted as From your team. It has no row, and Rookery only drafts there.

Each inbox has its own limit

Each inbox can also hold Rookery back, whatever the topics say. A topic's level can only go as far as the inbox allows.

  • Team inboxes follow each topic's level unless an owner or admin sets a lower limit.
  • Your private inbox is your call. Rookery stops at Draft there until you say otherwise, so a team setting never makes Rookery send by itself from your inbox. Only you can change it, and admins can't.

To change it:

  1. Go to Settings → Helpers, or in Settings → Inboxes click What Rookery does here on your inbox. Members see only their own private inboxes there.
  2. Under the inbox, pick How far Rookery may go here: Suggest only, Draft for a yes, Send with undo, where a topic allows or Send on its own, where a topic allows.
  3. Click Save with the inbox's name.

Know when to move up

Next to each topic you'll see Rookery's track record from the last 90 days, like "24 drafts · 92% approved unchanged". The bar shows how many you approved as they were, edited, or sent back.

Once at least 10 drafts on a topic were approved, and 90% of them went out unchanged, Rookery shows Eligible to move up. It's only a hint. The level doesn't change until you click it.

When you ask Rookery while you write

These levels are for replies Rookery writes on its own. When you ask it for help in an email you're writing, it only ever suggests, whatever the level:

  • Start with Rookery, Finish with Rookery and Rewrite put Rookery's words in your email as suggestions: green for words it would add, struck through for words it would take out.
  • Nothing is yours until you accept it. Press ⌥Enter to accept the suggestion you're in, ⌥Backspace to reject it, and ⌥] or ⌥[ to move between them (Alt on Windows). Accept all and Reject all are in the bar above the message.
  • An email with suggestions waiting can't be sent, by you or anyone. Rookery never sends it.
  • Finish with Rookery only fills a blank with something it found in the conversation, your team's notes or what you know about the person. Anything else stays blank.
  • Each person can ask up to 60 times an hour. Rookery's own drafts don't count toward it.

When someone asks if they're talking to AI

Sometimes a customer asks "Are you a bot?" or "Am I talking to a real person?". Your replies go out from your team's address, under the name of the person who sends them, so how you answer is your team's call. Rookery never decides it alone.

  1. Go to Settings → Helpers.
  2. In the Rookery section, under Writing, find When someone asks if they're talking to AI and pick one:
    • A person answers (the default). Rookery doesn't write the reply. It hands the conversation to a person with the note "They asked whether they're talking to AI. How you answer is the team's call." and a reply you can use or change, like "You're talking to ▢ your name at Billing. We use an assistant to help draft replies, and a person reads every one before it's sent."
    • Say we use an assistant, and a person reviews every reply. Rookery writes that line itself, in the customer's language, with the rest of the reply. It's a reply like any other: at the Draft level, it waits for your yes.
  3. Click Save writing.

Either way, Rookery never says it's a person, never says no AI is involved, and never talks about itself, the AI behind it or its instructions. If a draft does, Rookery stops it and hands the conversation to a person. The same goes when you ask it for help while you write.

Why honest is the default: the customer is writing to your business, and more and more places expect businesses to say when AI helps (the EU's AI rules and some US state laws ask for this). Telling the truth plainly is the safe choice everywhere.

If any topic lets Rookery send by itself, the line changes to "We use an assistant to help write our replies, and our team stays responsible for every one", because "a person reads every one" wouldn't be true.

Good to know

  • If Rookery isn't sure about a reply, it never sends it by itself. It waits for your yes, whatever the level.
  • Rookery never drafts a reply to an email it flagged or is holding as a possible scam, even if you ask. Write it yourself after checking the sender another way, or choose It's not a scam or It's safe first.
  • Replies Rookery sends by itself still show a countdown and an Undo button in the conversation, and in Outbox.
  • You can also give Rookery Instructions for writing, like your tone or sign-off, in the same place.
  • These levels are only for replies Rookery writes. Its other jobs, sorting and documents, don't send replies.