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Agent Handoff
Synonyms: human handoff, live agent transfer, escalation, bot-to-human handoff, agent-to-agent delegation
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Definition
Agent handoff is the process of transferring a conversation or task from one agent to another, whether that’s another AI agent or a human. A handoff typically happens when the current agent reaches the limit of its capabilities, needs specialized knowledge, or determines that another agent is better suited to handle the next step.
Use cases
A clumsy handoff makes users repeat themselves, then leave.
- The repeat-yourself transfer: A customer explains a double charge to a bot over 6 messages. The human who joins opens with "How can I help you today?"
- The escalation loop: The bot can't answer, asks "Did that help?", then shows the topic menu again. The user types "agent" 4 times and closes the tab.
- Vague briefs between AI agents: Anthropic's early research system sent subagents one-line tasks like "research the semiconductor shortage." The agents duplicated each other's searches and left gaps.
How it's used in practice
- List the triggers first: Hand off when the user asks for a person, after 2 failed answers, on payment issues, and on angry language.
- Send a summary with the transcript: The issue, the account, what the bot tried, and what the user wants. Copilot Studio passes the last topic and the user's phrases to the live agent automatically.
- Tell the user what's next: Name who takes over and how long the wait is.
- Brief AI agents in full: Each brief needs a goal, an output format, the tools to use, and scope limits.
Design the hand-back, too. After a human fixes the issue, the bot often returns with no memory of it. Write the fix into the shared context.
Challenges & limitations
- Context gets cut: Long transcripts get trimmed between agents, and key details go missing.
- Empty queues: A handoff at 2 a.m. often goes to a queue no one is watching.
- Wrong success metric: Teams that track "containment rate" reward bots that avoid escalating, even when the user needed a person.
Free resources
- Handoffs (OpenAI Agents SDK) — official docs on delegating tasks between agents and filtering conversation history
- Building Effective Agents (Anthropic) — when to use agents at all, plus human checkpoints and stopping conditions
- Hand Off to a Live Agent (Microsoft Copilot Studio) — the exact context variables a bot passes to a human agent
