Enable the auto-answer option to connect the interactions to the agents automatically. Auto answer removes the wait time until the agent manually accepts the incoming interaction. When you enable the auto answer option in the General tab, all incoming voice and digital interactions are auto answered. Genesys Cloud alerts the agents with a short audio alert and the new interaction is in ‘Connected’ status. You can exclude individual interactions from being auto-answered; disable the auto answer option in the tab for the specific channel such as message and email. 

• By default, auto answer is disabled. You can enable auto answer at queue or agent level. Between the agent- and queue-level configuration, there is no hierarchy and the interactions are auto answered when the setting is enabled in either of the configurations.  
• When you enable or disable auto answer for a queue, it is applicable to all supported active voice and digital channels on the queue. However, after you set this at the queue level, you can individually disable or enable auto answer for each channel and override the queue-level configuration that applied to that channel. The following rules apply:
  • Auto answer enabled at queue level and then disabled only for individual channels – Auto answer does not apply to the channels in which it was individually disabled, but works for the other channels. For example: Auto answer enabled at queue level and disabled for email, SMS, and WhatsApp interactions. In this case, auto answer does not apply to email, SMS, and WhatsApp interactions, but continues to stay enabled for web messaging and other messaging channels.
  • Auto answer disabled at queue level and then enabled only for individual channels – Auto answer applies to the channels that have the option enabled. 
  • When you change the auto answer setting for a queue, Genesys Cloud considers the setting a fresh update and removes all existing individual channel-level settings. To restore the individual settings that existed before this change, you must enable or disable auto answer for individual channels, as required. For example, auto answer is disabled at the queue level, but is enabled only for email. When you enable auto answer for the entire queue, all channel-level settings, including email, are set to auto answer. When you now disable at the queue level, auto answer is disabled for all channels, including email.
  • If you enable auto answer for incoming interactions, the alerting timeout is not applicable and therefore the option is not available to be set. However, agents receive an audio alert when a new interaction is connected.
• The auto answer setting applies to all agents and groups that are currently members of the queue.
• The number of interactions that are auto-answered depends on the agent utilization settings.
• Auto answer is applicable to callbacks, SMS, web messaging, open messaging, and the supported social messaging platforms.
• The total interaction time of an auto-answered interaction includes the time between when the interaction is auto-answered and when it is answered by an agent.
• Auto answer is also available on Genesys Cloud embedded clients. For more information, see Work with auto answer enabled interactions.
• To enable auto-answer for agents, see Turn on auto answer for agents.
  
  Note: Auto answer on queues is not available for web chat interactions.