Role surfaces and agents
Appricity has one brain per company, but a prospect asking a first question and an existing customer asking about configuration need different conversations. Role surfaces frame the brain for a job; agents are the personas people actually talk to.
What is a role surface?
A role surface is a job description for the brain. It decides:
- which sales methodology applies, or none;
- which scopes of knowledge it can draw on;
- which prep tools are allowed;
- its prompt framing and tone, and its voice strategy;
- language preferences;
- which release of your product it assumes.
Every workspace starts with five: Generalist, BDR (business development), Sales Engineer, Customer Success and Product Trainer. You can add your own from Surfaces → Role-surfaces → New role-surface, choosing a role type and a description.
What does "inherited" mean?
A role surface only needs to set what's different about it. Anything it leaves unset is inherited from the role surface it's based on, then from your workspace defaults, then from Appricity's defaults. The editor shows, field by field, whether a value is inherited or overridden, and the effective configuration the brain will actually use.
Can I see how a role surface will answer before using it?
Yes. The behaviour preview runs a question of your choice through the real brain with that role surface's saved settings. Save your changes first; the preview uses what's saved.
What is an agent?
An agent is the persona a buyer meets. It has:
- a name: what the buyer hears;
- a personality: shapes the tone of everything it says;
- self-knowledge: how it answers "who are you?";
- a role surface: the job it does (fixed once the agent is created);
- a voice, per language, for voice conversations;
- an avatar: the picture shown wherever the agent appears.
Several agents can share one role surface, for example two BDR agents with different names for different regions. Hear how {name} would answer previews an agent's reply to a question. It uses the name, personality and self-knowledge currently in the editor, so you can try a change before saving it; the preview says so when it is using unsaved changes.
Which agent answers my channels?
A default agent is created when you sign up, and the setup wizard lets you name agents for the roles you choose. On each channel's Answer incoming messages settings you pick which agent answers; if you don't, the recommended agent is used (your BDR agent if you have one, otherwise your generalist).
How do I give an agent a picture?
Every agent starts with its initials on a coloured disc. To change it, open the agent from Surfaces → Agents and, on the Identity tab, click the avatar. Choose Initials or one of the avatars in the library: abstract, geometric pictures in Appricity's colours. Then select Save changes. You can also pick one while naming your agents in the setup wizard. The suggested avatar (marked with a star) keeps the colour the agent already has.
To use your own picture, choose Upload a photo in the same window. Upload a PNG, JPEG or WebP image up to 5 MB; it's cropped to a square around its centre and saved straight away, with no need to select Save changes. Location and camera details in the file are removed before it's stored. SVG files aren't accepted, because they can carry scripts. Replace photo swaps it, and Remove photo goes back to the initials. If uploads aren't available on your workspace, the window says why and you can still pick from the library.
The avatar appears in your agent list, on the agent's own page, in the setup wizard, and in the meeting room a contact joins for a meeting booked with that agent.
Do agents pretend to be human?
No. Agents introduce themselves by name and company, say they're an AI assistant when asked, and voice conversations always open with a spoken AI disclosure.
How do agents get their voice?
Each agent has a voice provider and a voice per language. You can preview a voice before saving. In the setup wizard, choosing an agent's gender simply picks a matching default voice; it changes nothing else about the agent. On Team and above, More voices… in the wizard opens the full voice library for that agent; on other plans it's shown locked, and the three recommended voices stay available.