Automatic language detection in conversations

How a customer’s language is determined in conversations for Fibi AI Agent and Workflows.

Written By Markus from Featurebase

Last updated 1 day ago

Automatic language detection in conversations.

Overview

Featurebase runs AI-powered language detection on all conversations to determine which language to use when communicating with customers. This applies to Fibi AI Agent, Workflows, and AI Inbox Translations.

Every time a customer sends a new message, the system analyzes it along with recent messages to detect the language. If the detection is confident enough, it sets the conversation's Language attribute accordingly.

You can see the detected language in the right sidebar of the Inbox under Conversation attribute (screenshot above).

Once the language has been automatically detected, Fibi and Workflows will continue using that language for the remainder of the conversation without attempting to detect language again.

If there isn't enough customer content in a conversation to confidently detect a language, the system falls back to:

  • The customer's browser language (if available), otherwise

  • Your workspace default language

Language detection priority

Fibi, Workflows, and AI Inbox Translations determine a customer's language in the following order:

  1. Admin language override, if set

  2. AI-powered language detection, if confidence is high enough

  3. Customer's browser language

  4. Workspace default language

Language override

Manually overriding a conversations language from the inbox sidebar.

You can manually override the detected language for a conversation by clicking the Language attribute in the right sidebar of the Inbox.

Once overridden, automatic detection will no longer change the language for that conversation. Fibi and Workflows will use the overridden language going forward.

Learn more about manually setting conversation language: AI inbox translations

Note: Language overrides are set per conversation. If the same customer opens a new conversation, language detection starts fresh.

Good to know

  • Language detection runs on every new customer message, but the conversation language is only updated when confidence is high enough

  • Messages that consist mostly of code, special characters, or non-natural language content are excluded from detection to prevent incorrect language changes

  • Very short messages may not provide enough context for accurate detection – the system uses the rolling context of recent messages to compensate

  • If the customer's browser language is set to English and no other language signal is available, the first message in a Workflow will default to English regardless of your workspace default language

FAQ