Automatically Detect & Qualify Leads with Your AI Agent

Your AI agent can watch every conversation, decide whether it looks like a genuine lead based on criteria you write, and automatically set a field on that contact — for example moving them to a Qualified stage. This turns raw chat traffic into a prioritised list for sales without anyone reading each thread.

Before you start#

• An AI agent — lead qualification is configured in the agent builder. If you haven't built one yet, see Build Your First AI Agent and Configure Your AI Agent.
• A Contacts picklist field to write to — qualification sets a single-select (picklist) field on the Contacts module, so you need at least one such field with values (for example Lead Status).
• Create a contact for unknown numbers — qualification only runs on contacts. To qualify people messaging from new WhatsApp numbers, turn this on for your sender in Settings → WhatsApp Settings. Otherwise the AI can only qualify chats already linked to a contact.

Turn on lead detection#

1. Open the agent builder and find the Lead Qualification card (between Persona and Knowledge Sources).
2. Switch on Detect qualified lead. As the card explains, the agent analyses each conversation and moves the contact to your chosen stage when your criteria are met.
3. Fill in the three settings that appear (all are required to continue).

Configure the qualification#

• Qualified lead criteria — describe, in plain language, what makes a conversation a qualified lead (up to 2,000 characters). For example: The customer asks about pricing or a demo, shares a budget or timeline, or clearly wants to buy for their business. This text is exactly what the AI judges each conversation against. Use the Sample prompts button to start from a ready-made template — options include General buying intent, B2B / high-ticket sales, Demo / meeting request, Budget disclosed, E-commerce purchase intent, Service appointment, Real estate buyer / renter, Enterprise / long sales cycle, and Strict / high-quality only — then edit it to fit your business.
• Field to update — choose which Contacts picklist field a detected good lead is written to. Only single-select (picklist) fields on the Contacts module are offered, because the AI sets one value. It defaults to your lead-status field.
• Set value to — choose the value that field is set to when a lead qualifies. The options come from the field you picked above, so changing the Field to update clears this and you re-pick from the new field's values.

The helper line confirms the outcome: When the AI qualifies a contact, this field is set to the chosen value.

How it behaves#

• The agent evaluates each conversation against your criteria and, when they're met, sets the chosen field to the chosen value on that contact.
• Qualification runs on contacts only — a chat from an unknown number is qualified only if a contact was created for it (via Create a contact for unknown numbers).
• Write clear, specific criteria. Vague criteria qualify too many chats; overly strict criteria miss real leads. The Strict / high-quality only sample is a good base when you'd rather under-qualify.