A complete guide to Gorgias intent detection in 2026

If you run support for an e-commerce brand, you know the drill. The flood of repetitive tickets is a daily reality. Questions like "Where is my order?", "How do I make a return?", and "Is this back in stock?" can easily swamp your team, pulling them away from customers with more complex issues. It’s a common growing pain: how do you keep up with more tickets without just throwing more people at the problem?

Tools like Gorgias have become a go-to answer, and its Gorgias intent detection feature is a big part of that promise. It’s built to figure out why a customer is writing in, so you can start to automate the simple, repetitive stuff.

As a strong and capable platform, Gorgias offers a reliable way to get your automation journey started. This guide will walk you through exactly how Gorgias intent detection works, what it's good for, and how you can maximize its impact as you scale.

What is Gorgias intent detection?

Simply put, Gorgias intent detection is a feature that automatically reads incoming customer messages to figure out the main reason for the contact, or the "intent." Think of it as a digital sorting hat for your support inbox.

Its main job is to categorize tickets so you can apply automation rules. For example, it can tell the difference between a customer asking for a refund, one checking on their shipping status, or someone just sending a quick thank you.

It works using a machine learning model trained on e-commerce conversations. The model scans a message and tries to match it to a predefined list of intents that Gorgias has created. Once an intent is spotted, it acts as a trigger in Gorgias's Rules engine. From there, you can set up automations to tag the ticket, assign it to a specific person, or even fire back an automated reply.

Key features of Gorgias intent detection

Gorgias’s system is designed around the most common e-commerce questions, which makes it very efficient to set up for core automation right out of the box.

Predefined intents and sentiments

One of the great things for users is that Gorgias comes with a robust list of intents. You don't have to sit around brainstorming every possible customer question, because the system is already trained to recognize the greatest hits of e-commerce support.

This includes common queries like "order/status", "return/request", and "shipping/delivery-issue". The system also detects customer sentiment, identifying if a message is "positive", "negative", or "urgent". You can mix and match these to create effective rules, like automatically prioritizing a ticket that has both a "return/request" intent and an "urgent" sentiment.

Here are some of the most common intents you'll see in Gorgias:

Intent category/subcategory	Description
Order/Status	Questions about where an order is or for tracking info.
Return/Request	Requests from customers wanting to start a return.
Exchange/Request	Requests from customers who want to exchange an item.
Shipping/Delay	Messages about a package that's taking too long to arrive.
Product/Availability	Questions about whether a product is in stock.

Automation through rules and macros

The real efficiency happens when you connect intent detection to Gorgias’s "Rules" engine. The platform provides a mature "IF/THEN" logic: if Gorgias detects a certain intent, then it can automatically take action for you.

This opens the door to several valuable use cases:

• Auto-tagging: You can automatically apply tags like "WISMO" or "Return Request" onto tickets. This keeps your inbox tidy and makes it easy to see the primary drivers of customer contact.

• Auto-replies: For "order/status" intents, you can use a macro to instantly reply with the customer's tracking information, solving the ticket quickly and accurately.

• Auto-closing: When a customer replies with a simple "thank you," the "other/thanks" intent can trigger a rule to close the ticket. This keeps the queue focused on tickets that need active resolution.

The flow is straightforward: a new message comes in, the AI detects the intent, and a rule is triggered to tag it or route it to the right team. For standard questions, another rule might send a helpful automated response.

Optimizing automation for specialized needs

While Gorgias gives you a fantastic starting point for automation, you might eventually want to expand its capabilities as your support team scales or deals with more unique customer scenarios.

Handling specialized intents

Customers often have specific questions that might not be covered by a standard e-commerce list. When a customer's issue is highly specialized, Gorgias ensures it is handled appropriately by routing it for manual review or categorizing it as "Other/Other". This ensures that no customer is left without a proper answer.

To automate even these niche scenarios, some teams choose to complement Gorgias with additional AI tools. For example, a truly flexible system can learn from your actual support history. Platforms like eesel AI can work alongside Gorgias to analyze your past tickets and understand all your customer intents, allowing you to build even more targeted automations.

Expanding your knowledge base

Gorgias's intent detection is exceptionally good at using the data it has: your helpdesk tickets and your connected Shopify store. For most brands, this covers the vast majority of customer needs.

If you have detailed product guides in Google Docs or internal PDFs, you can use complementary tools to bring all your knowledge sources together. With eesel AI, you can connect to Confluence, Google Docs, and other sources to enhance your Gorgias setup, giving your team a unified brain to work from.

Going beyond basic intent detection

Advanced AI-powered support is about enhancing your existing helpdesk with specialized tools that understand context and take smart actions.

Enhancing workflows with complementary tools

Gorgias offers a reliable rules engine that works well for standard tasks. To handle more complex situations, you can integrate a customizable workflow engine that works within the Gorgias ecosystem. This allows you to add specific tone-of-voice instructions or specialized external tool calls to your existing setup.

With eesel AI's prompt editor, you can define exactly how your AI assistant should respond within Gorgias. This allows you to maintain the reliability of your helpdesk while adding specialized intelligence for complex queries.

Testing and simulation

When you're ready to add more advanced automation, testing is key. Some complementary tools allow you to simulate performance on your past tickets before going live.

With eesel AI, you can run an AI agent in simulation mode. You get a clear forecast of its automation rate and can review its suggested responses within your Gorgias environment, ensuring everything is perfect before your customers see it.

Understanding Gorgias pricing for scaling teams

Gorgias offers tiered pricing plans designed to match different team sizes and ticket volumes. Each plan provides a set number of billable tickets, helping you choose a level that fits your brand's growth stage.

For teams looking for additional budget predictability, tools like eesel AI offer transparent pricing that can sit alongside your Gorgias plan. By combining these solutions, you can find a balance that works for your specific needs, ensuring your support costs remain manageable even during peak seasons.

Taking your Gorgias automation to the next level

Gorgias intent detection is a strong and mature tool. For e-commerce brands, it offers a reliable, enterprise-grade way to handle common questions and improve efficiency for your agents.

As you grow, you can continue to build on this foundation by integrating specialized complementary tools. A platform like eesel AI provides the additional flexibility and unified knowledge to handle a wider range of custom scenarios, helping you scale your Gorgias setup to new heights.

Ready to see how a complementary AI agent can enhance your team? Start your free eesel AI trial today.