Overview
Smart Replies allow you to automatically prompt users for clarification on the feedback they submit. This is powered by Canny's Autopilot AI and leads to better feedback with more context from your users. All with zero additional effort!
Note: Smart Replies are only available on the Pro (or legacy Growth) and Business plans. Each Smart Reply uses 1 Autopilot credit.
Enabling Smart Replies
Smart Replies can be enabled from the Boards tab in your Canny settings:
Once enabled, Smart Replies will automatically show up as a public comment:
🆕 Custom Instructions for Smart Replies:
You can now write your own instructions to control how Smart Replies responds to posts - giving you full control over tone, messaging, and behaviour.
Head to the Settings page to find the new text area where you can set things like a specific tone of voice, canned answers, or conditional logic (e.g., "If the author is an admin, then...").
Each time Smart Replies processes a post, it automatically pulls in:
Your company info (name, industry, description)
The post data (post content, description, fields)
Relevant facts from your Knowledge Hub
Whether the requested feature exists or has a workaround
Whether the post author is an admin or not
⚠️ Heads up: Custom instructions replace the default behavior entirely. Make sure your instructions are thorough and well-tested before going live!
🆕 Improvements to the Default Pipeline
Even if you're not using custom instructions, Smart Replies now works better out of the box:
Skips unnecessary replies — if your Knowledge Hub shows the feature already exists, Smart Replies won't ask about it.
Asks fewer, better questions — focused on user experience rather than technical details, and only when truly needed.
Always acknowledges feedback — users receive a thank-you even when no questions are asked.
More empathetic tone — replies handle frustration without sounding tone-deaf.
Matches your tone of voice — Smart Replies adapts to the writing style of the comment author you've selected, using their existing comments as a reference.
Things to note:
Smart Replies are enabled on a board-by-board basis.
Replies can take up to 2 hours to generate.
Canny will not generate replies for
Posts that are suspected to be spam
Posts that appear blatantly nonsensical (e.g. gibberish)
Posts with harmful or inflammatory content (e.g. insults)
If you'd like replies to come from a "bot" admin, you can invite a new Contributor from the Admins page in your Canny settings for that purpose.
Replies are only generated for posts created after Smart Replies have been enabled.
Smart Replies are available on the Pro (or legacy Growth) and Business plans. See plans
As always, please let us know if you have any questions!