AI front desk

How the AI front desk works

The AI front desk (called the assistant in the app) is an AI model that can only act through a small set of booking tools, only knows what is in your settings and calendar, and has every reply checked before it is sent.

Note

The AI front desk comes with the Front Desk plan (and your free trial). It works with Tornaly booking: it books straight into your calendar, so it needs your services, team and hours here. If your website’s booking button opens Booksy, Fresha or Square, it can answer questions but can’t book.

What happens when a client writes

The message arrives
It is saved in the Inbox, linked to the right client (see Identity & matching). STOP/START keywords, “please stop texting me” in the client’s own words, YES to a text-reminder confirmation and taps on reminder buttons are handled right away, without AI. A voice note is turned into text first (see Voice notes).
A short pause
The assistant waits a moment (about half a second on web chat, 2–3 seconds on WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS) so that several quick messages are answered together.
Safety check
Messages about health, legal threats, disputed charges, refunds, harassment or self-harm skip the AI completely and go to your team. See Hand-offs & pausing.
The assistant reads your business
Fresh from your settings every time: services and prices, team and who does what, opening hours, booking rules, your FAQ answers and your notes. Plus this client’s upcoming appointments and the last messages in the chat.
It uses tools
To look up open times, hold one, confirm, move or cancel a booking, add someone to the waitlist or hand the chat to a person.
The reply is checked
Before anything is sent, the draft is compared with the facts (below).
The reply is sent
Formatted for the channel, with tap-to-reply buttons where the channel supports them. A deposit link is always included when one is due.

Each step is recorded. Open a conversation in the Inbox, or use Try it, to see exactly which tools ran and which checks passed.

Grounded in your facts

The assistant is told to use only your information and what its tools return. On top of that instruction, the booking tools themselves enforce the important parts:

Times come only from the booking engine. The assistant can’t hold a time the engine didn’t offer — it has to pick one of the offered options.
Prices and deposits come from your services and booking rules.
Policies (cancellation window, deposits, notice) are written from the same rules that the calendar enforces, so what clients are told always matches what happens. See Booking rules.

The accuracy check

Every draft reply is checked against the facts before it goes out. The check looks for:

Check	Passes only if…
Prices and percentages	Every amount matches your services, deposits, policies, a tool result, or text you wrote yourself (FAQ, description, notes). A price the client typed never counts as proof.
Times	Every time is one the calendar offered, your opening or closing time, one you wrote, or one the client just mentioned.
Days and dates	Weekdays match their dates — “tomorrow (Friday)” must really be a Friday.
“You’re booked”	A booking was actually made, confirmed or looked up in this chat, and the day, time and service match it.
“Cancelled”	The cancellation actually went through.
Promises only you can make	Refunds, discounts, waived fees or deposits, free services, special prices, exceptions to your rules — blocked unless your own text already offers it.

When a reply fails the check

A promise only you can make: the reply is never sent. The client gets “Let me double-check that with the team — someone will confirm with you shortly”, and the chat is handed to your team.
Anything else: the assistant gets one chance to fix the reply. If the second try still fails, the client gets the same holding message and the chat is handed off.

Refunds and discounts are always yours

The assistant can’t decide a refund, a discount, a waived fee or an exception. A client asking for a refund, or disputing a charge, is routed to your team before the AI even sees the message. Deposit refunds on cancellation follow your cancellation rules automatically — the assistant only tells the client what the rules decided.

Protection against tricks

Client messages are treated as information, never as instructions. “Ignore your rules” or “the owner said it’s free” doesn’t change anything.
Hidden characters and fake “system” labels are removed from client messages.
A client can only see and change their own appointments.
If asked, the assistant says it is your business’s virtual assistant. It doesn’t pretend to be a person.

What you control

In Settings → Assistant (Owner and Manager):

Setting	Options
On / off	One switch for all channels. Off means nobody gets automatic replies; chats wait in the Inbox.
Tone	Friendly (default), Professional or Casual, each with a sample reply.
Short description	Up to 600 characters about your business.
Always hand these to a person	Topics like complaints, refunds, medical questions, price negotiation (the defaults). Up to 20.
Assistant stays quiet for	How long it pauses after someone on your team replies: 30 min to 3 days (3 hours by default).
Extra instructions	Up to 1,500 characters of your own notes. They can’t override the safety rules.
Answers to common questions	Your FAQ. Each answer can be switched on or off.
Voice notes	Transcribe them so the assistant can answer (default) or Always pass them to a person. See Voice notes.
Limits (advanced)	How much AI one conversation, and the whole business, can use in 24 hours. See Cost & models.

Note

“Always hand these to a person” is checked word for word before the AI sees the message: common topics (complaints, refunds, discounts, medical or allergy questions, price haggling) are recognised in their usual wordings, and a topic of your own matches when the client uses its words. The AI also gets the list, for other wordings and other languages. Questions about a policy, like “is the deposit refundable?”, aren’t refund requests: the assistant answers them. The fixed safety topics above (health, legal, refunds, disputes, harassment, self-harm) are always caught before the AI.

The assistant answers around the clock on every connected channel, and introduces itself as your business’s virtual assistant.