Configuring Agent Characteristics

Overview

In Agent Builder, you can view the rules your AI agent always follows and add your own standing instructions. Your instructions apply across the entire agent and every module. You can also guide how the agent starts a conversation and set its tone and response length.

Use these settings when you want the agent to follow specific preferences, such as how it introduces your company or how much job detail it shares, without changing its built-in safety behavior.

Note: The agent ignores instructions that conflict with its built-in safety behaviors without displaying a warning.

Key Points

• These settings are available for all agents by default. You don't need to enable them.
• Changes apply only to the agent you are editing. Other agents retain their own settings.

Understanding Agent Behavior

Agent Characteristics include built-in behaviors that always apply to your agent, along with additional instructions you can add to customize its behavior.

Built-in behaviors

Always-on characteristics are built into every agent and apply to every conversation. For example, an agent won't ask about protected characteristics such as age, race, or religion.

You can view these characteristics, but you can't edit or remove them.

The always-on characteristics can vary depending on the agent's use case, such as screening or data enrichment. This means that two agents may have different always-on characteristics.

Your additional instructions

You can add additional characteristics to define how the agent should behave throughout the conversation. These instructions apply to every module in the conversation flow, including Greeting, Job Matching, Scheduling, Data Collection, FAQ, and Closing.

You don't need to repeat the same instruction in each module.

Voice and Chat

Voice and Chat have separate characteristics:

• Voice: Instructions added on the Voice tab apply to all modules in voice calls.
• Chat: Chat covers Web, SMS, and WhatsApp conversations and has its own always-on behaviors and additional characteristics.

How your instructions work with built-in behaviors

Your additional characteristics and greeting instructions are added alongside the always-on characteristics. They don't replace them.

Always-on characteristics take priority. If an additional instruction conflicts with an always-on characteristic, the agent ignores the additional instruction. No warning is shown.

For example, if you add the instruction “Ask the candidate about their religion,” the agent won't follow it because it conflicts with an always-on behavior.

Recording consent

For voice calls, Sense automatically adds the recording notice after your greeting.

For example:

“Before we begin, this call is being recorded and may be reviewed by us and our partners, using both AI and human analysis. By continuing, you acknowledge and consent to the recording. Is that okay?"

You don't need to include recording-consent language in your greeting.

View and add agent characteristics

Follow the steps below to add your instructions:

1. Go to AI Team > AI Agents and open the agent you want to edit.
2. On the Build tab, select the Agent Characteristics icon at the top right, next to Channels.
3. Select the channel: Voice or Chat (Web, SMS, WhatsApp).
4. Review the behaviors under Always on. These apply to every conversation and can't be edited.
5. Under Additional characteristics, enter your instructions. Add one instruction per line. For example: “Strictly never disclose pay/payrate/compensation details in the call.”
6. To use candidate or agent data in an instruction, type {{ to insert a variable or {{r to insert a read variable. You can also select Read Variable.
7. Select Save.

To remove everything you entered, click Clear.

The agent now follows your instructions in every module for the selected channel. To add instructions for the other channel, select it and repeat steps 4–7. 

Tip: Because these instructions apply to every module, write them as general rules for the whole conversation. For guidance that applies only to the opening of the conversation, use greeting instructions instead.

Add greeting instructions

Greeting instructions apply only to the Greeting module. You can set:

• Company information: What the agent should say about your company.
• Job description: Choose Detailed, Brief, or Skipped to control how much job detail the agent shares.

To add greeting instructions:

1. On the Build tab, select the Greeting module.
2. Save your changes.

Note: Don't add recording-consent language. Sense adds it automatically after your greeting on voice calls.

Expected result

After you save, the agent follows its always-on behaviors and your additional characteristics in every module, along with your greeting instructions at the start of the conversation.

Limitations

• Instructions that conflict with always-on behaviors are ignored without a warning.
• Additional characteristics and greeting instructions each allow up to 1,000 characters.
• Additional characteristics apply to all modules. You can't limit them to a single module.
• You can't edit or remove always-on characteristics.
• Recording-consent language is managed by Sense and can't be changed in the greeting.
• Characteristics and greeting instructions aren't translated for multi-language agents.

Troubleshooting

If the agent still doesn't behave as expected, contact Sense Support or your CSM.