Keywords — message routing

What it is

Keywords let you control which messages trigger the automatic reply and, optionally, assign the lead to a specific AI based on what they write. Configuration lives in Keyword settings.

The lead's first message is matched against your keywords. Match → routed to the configured AI.

Two operating modes

Mode	Behavior
Reply to all messages (default)	The AI replies to every incoming message.
Reply only to keywords	The AI only replies if the lead’s first message matches a configured keyword. The rest of the leads stay in manual mode.

Which messages are evaluated

Reply only to keywords decides on the lead’s first message, and decides again every time the lead replies to one of your stories. Update AI is checked on every message from the lead. How the text is compared with the keyword is explained in How a keyword is matched.

Works with story replies and mentions

Keyword matching also works when someone replies to or mentions you in an Instagram story: those arrive as a DM and go through the same keyword system, so the reply or the AI routing triggers just like with a regular message.

Match types

Each keyword has a Match type:

Type	How it matches	Example
Exact match	The message must be exactly this keyword.	INFO only matches a message whose content is INFO.
Contains	The message must contain this keyword somewhere.	price matches “What’s the price?”.

How a keyword is matched

These rules are the same for direct-message keywords, for comment keywords on reels and posts and for story CTAs.

Accents, capitals, punctuation and emojis don’t count

Before comparing, ZeroChats cleans up both the message and the keyword: it lowercases everything, strips accents, and removes punctuation, emojis and mentions (@account). Only the remaining letters and numbers are compared.

• menu matches menú, MENU, Menú and ¡Menú!.
• info matches INFO, ínfo, info!! and @youraccount info 🔥.

Don’t duplicate keywords

You don’t need to add variants with or without accents, in capitals or with punctuation. menu and menú are the same keyword for ZeroChats: creating both doesn’t widen anything, it just leaves a copy that never adds new matches.

Exact match and Contains

• Exact match: the cleaned-up message has to be the keyword and nothing else. With the keyword list, the message list! or List! 🙌 does match, because punctuation and emojis are removed before comparing. List please does not match, because it has more words.
• Contains: the keyword only has to appear somewhere in the message, including inside a longer word. info matches I want info and also information. If the keyword has several words (want info), they have to appear next to each other and in that order.

Small typos

Longer keywords accept a small typo: one letter changed, added or missing, or two letters swapped. For example, price matches prcie. Short keywords, like info, have to be spelled right, so they don’t fire on unrelated words.

When a message matches several keywords

Each message or comment picks a single winning keyword, even if it contains several. Two keywords never fire at once, so a comment with two keywords sends one reply, not two. The winner is chosen in this order:

1. On comments, a keyword assigned to that specific publication beats one that applies to all publications.
2. Exact match beats Contains.
3. A match written as-is beats one that only matches thanks to typo tolerance.
4. The longer keyword beats the shorter one (want info beats info).

How to configure it

1. In Manage keywords, press Add keyword and type the term.
2. In Select match type, choose Exact match or Contains.
3. (Optional) In Select AI, assign the keyword to a specific AI. If you leave it on Default, the business’s usual AI is used.
4. (Optional) Enable Update AI: if a message contains this keyword, the lead’s AI is switched to the configured AI for all of their future messages.

Link keywords to AIs

Each keyword can be associated with a different AI. When a message matches and Update AI is enabled, that lead starts talking to the chosen AI for the rest of the conversation. It’s the basis for routing inquiries to specialized flows.

Use case

Sales AI + support AI. Assign words like “buy”, “price” or “info” to the sales AI, and “help”, “issue” or “invoice” to support. Enable Update AI in each one so leads are automatically routed from the first relevant message.

Important

Make sure your AI instructions are prepared to respond to the keywords you configure. If the AI has no context for how to reply, it can decide to stay silent even if the keyword matches.

Best practices

• Start with a few well-chosen keywords: the more you add, the easier it is for them to overlap.
• Use Exact match for campaigns with closed codes (INFO, DEMO, PROMO20) and Contains for conversational topics (price, hours, address).
• If you enable Reply only to keywords, keep in mind that any lead whose first message doesn’t match will be in manual mode and you’ll have to handle it yourself.
• Review keywords periodically: remove the ones that aren’t used and adjust those that generate too many false positives.