SMS Agents Overview

Learn how SMS agents work, how conversations are handled, and where they fit into workflows.

SMS Agents

SMS Agents handle text message conversations with your contacts. They use AI to respond to inbound messages and can also support outbound messaging workflows.

Key Concepts

• SMS Agent — The AI configuration for text message conversations
• Text Number — The phone number used for sending/receiving SMS
• Conversation — A thread of messages with a specific contact

Getting Started

1. Ensure you have a phone number provisioned for SMS (see Phone Numbers)
2. Navigate to Agents > SMS Agents
3. Click + Create SMS Agent
4. Configure the agent name, number, and instructions
5. Save

Creating an SMS Agent

Configure your SMS agent with:

• Name — Descriptive identifier
• Text Number — Select a provisioned phone number
• Instructions — System prompt guiding the AI's text responses
• Tools — Functions available during SMS conversations

Viewing Conversations

Open an SMS agent to review its conversations. Each conversation shows:

• Contact name and phone number
• Message history
• Last message date
• Message count

How Inbound SMS Works

When someone sends a text message to your agent number:

1. The message is received by Karmaflow.ai
2. The SMS agent processes the message using its instructions
3. The AI generates and sends a response
4. The conversation continues as long as the contact keeps texting

When a person takes over from a helpdesk ticket. If your helpdesk uses this agent and a teammate texts the customer from one of their open tickets, the agent stops answering that customer while the ticket is open. Their texts go onto the ticket as replies, and the ticket says who is handling it. The agent picks the conversation back up when the ticket is solved, or when someone clicks Hand back to the SMS agent on the ticket. See Replying by text.

Photos and files customers send

When a customer texts a picture (MMS) the file is stored with the message and shown in the conversation. Before the agent answers, each image or PDF is described in plain words — what it shows, how many items, size cues, condition, any readable text — and that description is given to the agent alongside the text, so it can quote from a photo of a load or read a model number off a label. The same description is kept on the message and shown under the file in the conversation, so a person reading the thread later sees what the agent was told. Large photos are downscaled before analysis (the stored file is untouched), so any JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF up to the per-file limit is read. HEIC photos (the iPhone default in some settings) cannot be read yet: they are stored and shown, and the agent is told to ask for a JPEG or a screenshot.

The agent is told plainly when a file arrived but could not be read (unsupported type, too large, or a failed download), so it never claims to have seen something it has not, and the conversation shows a note under the message naming the file that was not kept and why. The per-file size limit is workspace-wide (10 MB by default, 15 MB at most) and is shown on the agent's page under Photos customers text; change it on the Google Ads settings page or the Helpdesk settings page — it is one limit, shared by texted photos, Google Local Services lead files, inbound email and uploads. Descriptions are metered like other AI usage and honour the workspace's AI controls. This applies to every inbound text, whether it arrived on the agent's own number or through a Google Local Services lead.

Outbound SMS

Send outbound text messages through orchestrations or API calls. The SMS agent's configured persona and instructions continue to shape how the conversation is handled.