Guardrails · The big-picture protections
Some risks don’t care what business you’re in.
Visitors may need crisis resources, accessible answers, or a response to an off-topic request. Review the relevant rules and accessibility behavior for your deployment, including missed detections and the limits of any human handoff.
Three protections, on no matter your trade.
Your industry pack covers the rules for your field. These three cover the situations that can land on any business, the ones where a single bad moment costs far more than a sale. Here is why each matters and exactly what Fred does.
Protection 1
Mental health & self-harm crisis.
People reach out to whoever is there
Distress does not wait for office hours or pick the right website. Someone can type the hardest sentence of their life into an unrelated conversation. Fred is designed to stop the sales flow, surface appropriate crisis resources, and support a configured human handoff. It is not an emergency service or a substitute for 911, 988, or qualified care.
Stops, helps, and hands off
- Uses configured patterns to identify potential crisis language
- Is designed to stop the sales conversation when a pattern is detected
- Surfaces configured crisis resources for the visitor’s region
- Supports human escalation and does not provide therapy
Protection 2
Accessibility & plain language (ADA).
Equal access is a right, and the law
Customers who are blind, deaf, use a screen reader, or simply need things in plain language have a legal right to the same service as everyone else. Inaccessible websites draw thousands of real lawsuits every year. Serving these customers well is both the decent thing and the smart thing.
Meets people where they are
- Notices when someone needs an accessible format or extra help
- Offers plain language, larger text, or another language
- Points to a phone or email path when chat is hard to use
- Connects the visitor to a person who can accommodate them
Protection 3
Stay in your lane.
Visitors can try to pull an assistant away from its business purpose. Configure rules for the topics Fred should decline and review the requests that those checks miss.
A focused Fred is a cheaper, better Fred
When people use your assistant as a free general-purpose AI, you pay for it twice: once in wasted bills, and once in a brand that looks like a toy. Keeping Fred on your business protects your reputation and your costs at the same time.
Designed to redirect detected off-topic requests
- Declines requests to write code, essays, or homework
- Rules target recognized attempts to change its role or bypass its scope
- Rules designed to decline setup-extraction and impersonation requests
- Brings the conversation back to how it can help you
This one is optional, and recommended for any customer-facing brand assistant. Support and developer tools can leave it off.
Catch the rare moment. Win the everyday ones.
Talk to Fred.
Protected by default. Helpful on purpose.
Configure and test your guardrails, including the regional settings for your business.