AI lifecycle stage automation only ever looked at what a contact said. A customer sends payment details and moves to Pending Payment, your team replies "your payment was successful," and that reply used to be ignored entirely, so the contact sat in Pending Payment until they happened to message again.
From this release, outgoing messages count too:
- Replies from anywhere move contacts — a reply from a teammate in the inbox, from an AI agent, or from an automation or workflow can now move a contact's stage, the same way an incoming message already could.
- Confirmations move contacts forward — replies like "your order has shipped" or "your booking is confirmed" advance the stage.
- Cancellations move contacts backward — replies like "your refund has been processed" move a contact back.
- Intent alone doesn't move anyone — questions, quotes, reminders, promises of future action, and pleasantries are deliberately ignored, so stages don't creep forward before something's actually done.
Setup doesn't change. Your existing stage definitions, written in plain language, work as-is, and this applies automatically if AI stage automation is already switched on — no new toggle to find.