Sidekick is designed to deliver answers that are fast, accurate, and on-brand. Every response goes through a careful process behind the scenes: understanding the question, finding the right information, and shaping an answer that feels human and true to your company’s voice.
We are simplifying the process so responses arrive more quickly - without compromising on quality or tone.
How it works
Every Sidekick response passes through multiple intelligent safeguards and checks. These steps ensure it interprets the request correctly, retrieves the right information, and delivers a reply that matches your standards:
Understanding the question
Sidekick doesn’t just read words - it interprets intent, determines the type of request, and maps the information it needs to deliver the best response.
Intelligent information retrieval
It then digs through multiple sources, such as Guides, knowledge base articles, Customer history, and even order data, to gather the most relevant details. Sidekick filters and prioritizes this information so it’s working with what matters, not clutter.
Response generation
With the right context, Sidekick creates a reply that sounds like your brand. It chooses the right tone, uses approved phrasing, and organizes the answer to be as clear as possible.
Multi-layer quality verification
Before sending, Sidekick runs through a checklist: Is the information correct? Does it follow your brand rules? Should this go to a human Agent? Are there any mistakes or “hallucinations”? Only after passing these checks does the answer go out. Every step also feeds back into Sidekick’s learning, making it smarter over time.
These safeguards mean responses may take up to 15 seconds today. They’re what ensure Sidekick’s answers are not just fast - but reliable. And as we continue to optimize, response times will keep improving.
Ongoing performance optimizations
Making Sidekick faster is a top priority. We have dedicated teams focused on performance across three key areas, so your Customers feel the benefit every time they engage:
Faster technology → quicker replies
We’re adopting the latest generation of AI models and providers that deliver high-quality responses in a fraction of the time. In our voice product, this approach already reduced response times by 3–4x, and those gains are now being tuned and tested for chat - bringing faster conversations without compromising accuracy.
Smarter response process → fewer steps per answer
A Sidekick reply can involve multiple stages: classifying a request, searching for the right content, drafting, rephrasing, and validating the final answer. Historically, many of these steps happened one after another. We’re now streamlining the process - removing unnecessary steps and running others in parallel - so Sidekick can deliver the same trusted quality in less time.
Example: By moving to a new “Questions & Recommendations Guide,” we’ve already combined steps like classification, search, and tone rephrasing - eliminating bottlenecks and cutting latency.
Better infrastructure → a smoother experience
We’re upgrading Sidekick’s foundation so it feels faster and more seamless. This includes smarter caching (so Sidekick doesn’t “re-learn” the same things), more efficient handling of multiple AI calls, and UI enhancements that reduce perceived wait times while keeping you informed.
What to expect
Speed only matters if quality stays high. That’s why we roll out performance improvements thoughtfully, testing and fine-tuning at every step.
Today: Most Customers see an average Sidekick response time of ~10 seconds.
Near-term: Improvements will roll out incrementally over the coming weeks, so you’ll start noticing faster replies in real conversations.
Future goal: Our engineering team is targeting average response times of 1–3 seconds by December 2025.
With this ongoing investment, Sidekick will continue to deliver resolution-first service at scale - meeting the volume and speed demands of modern Customer experience while always keeping quality at the center.