Mike HeapMike is an experienced Product Manager who focuses on all the “non-development” areas of My AskAI, from finance and customer success to product design, copywriting, testing and more.
Table of Contents
- What is Crisp AI?
- How easy is it to set up Crisp's AI (Hugo)?
- What channels does Crisp's AI work in?
- What are the limitations of Crisp's AI?
- What knowledge can I train Crisp's AI on?
- What features does Crisp's AI have?
- How do I improve Crisp's AI responses?
- What resolution rate can I expect from Crisp's AI?
- What AI model does Crisp use?
- What languages does Crisp's AI work in?
- How secure is Crisp's AI?
- Who is using Crisp's AI?
- How much does Crisp's AI cost?
- Does Crisp's AI have a free trial?
- Is Crisp's AI worth it?
- What are the pros and cons of Crisp's AI?
- FAQs
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Crisp's Hugo AI resolves up to 60% of tickets at roughly $0.05 each, which is genuinely cheap. The real cost is that you have to run your whole helpdesk on Crisp to get it.
If you're reading this, someone has probably asked you to "add AI to our chat", and Crisp keeps coming up as the cheap option. That's fair, because it is genuinely cheap. But I'd want to know whether cheap is the same as right for your team, and what you're signing up for when you switch Hugo on.
A few situations tend to bring people here:
- You already run Crisp's live chat and you're wondering whether Hugo is worth turning on.
- You're shopping for low-cost AI chat and weighing Crisp against Intercom's Fin or Tidio's Lyro.
- You're already on Zendesk or Intercom and want to know if you can bolt Crisp's AI onto what you have. (Short answer, up front: you can't, and that turns out to matter a lot.)
I'll walk through what Crisp's AI actually is, how Hugo works, what you can train it on, where it falls short, what it costs, and who should pick it, versus layering AI onto the helpdesk you've already got.
What is Crisp AI?
TL;DR: Crisp AI is a stack of AI features inside Crisp's live-chat platform. The flagship is Hugo, an autonomous AI agent, bundled into Crisp's paid plans rather than sold on its own.
Crisp is a bootstrapped French SaaS company, based in Nantes, that started life as a live-chat widget and rebuilt itself into what it now calls "the AI Customer Support platform". Crisp AI is a whole stack of AI features layered onto Crisp's core chat product rather than a single tool, and the flagship piece is Hugo, Crisp's autonomous AI agent.
Hugo is bundled into Crisp's paid plans. There's no standalone Hugo subscription you can buy on its own; to use the AI, you use Crisp.
Around Hugo sit a handful of other AI features, some newer than others:
- Hugo: the autonomous agent that answers customer questions and runs no-code workflows.
- MagicReply: the older AI-draft feature, originally built on OpenAI models, now folded into an "Answer with Hugo" workflow block.
- AI Overlay: an AI-powered self-service search widget that Crisp says can "deflect 30-50% of simple requests".
- Copilot: an agent-facing assistant that suggests answers to your human operators and, in Crisp's words, "never writes to the customer".
- AI Writing tools: composer actions like Predict, Rephrase, Fix grammar, Adjust tone, Expand, Summarize and Translate.
In plain English: Hugo is the brain that talks to customers, Copilot is the brain that helps your agents, and the Magic and Overlay features are the older self-service layer around them.
G2: Crisp scores 4.5/5 from 194 reviews on G2. "Until recently, we had to outsource our AI chatbot service, but Crisp made massive improvements in that, and now we don't have to pay for our outsource anymore." via a verified G2 reviewer.
My AskAI works the opposite way to Crisp. Instead of being its own platform you adopt wholesale, My AskAI is an AI agent that lives inside the helpdesk you already run: Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Gorgias or HubSpot. We'll come back to why that difference is the single biggest decision point in this guide.
How easy is it to set up Crisp's AI (Hugo)?
TL;DR: Crisp markets "live in under 5 minutes", and the no-code path is real. In practice, getting Hugo genuinely good takes ongoing tuning, and Hugo credits burn during the free trial.
Crisp markets Hugo as fast to deploy, with "try it yourself in under 5 minutes" on Hugo's homepage. The documented setup is a four-step loop: train the AI on your content, build a workflow, test it in the Playground, then deploy and measure.
The onboarding itself is no-code for the standard path. You give Hugo a name and avatar, write a description of your business, set escalation rules and office hours, point it at your knowledge sources, and test it in the Playground: a sandbox where you can chat with Hugo, switch AI models on the fly, and open a "Guardrails drawer" that shows which sources Hugo used for each answer.
Reality is a little messier than "under 5 minutes". Word-on-the-street (and the G2 reviews) is that the AI is "quite hard for beginners to grasp", and getting Hugo genuinely good takes ongoing tuning rather than a single afternoon.
There's also a billing wrinkle worth knowing before you start: Hugo credits are consumed during the free trial, so testing and training Hugo bills against your usage. The MCP Server for custom tool integrations is Plus-tier only and does need engineering work.
My AskAI is built for a similar quick start: most teams are set up in around ten minutes, with no developer for the standard configuration. The difference is what you can do while you evaluate. My AskAI runs in Internal Notes mode, drafting replies as private notes your agents see but customers don't, so you can run it side by side with your current setup before it ever talks to a customer.
What channels does Crisp's AI work in?
TL;DR: Hugo runs across web chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and email, but channels are tier-gated, and there's no native voice or phone support.
Hugo deploys across web chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and email. The wrinkle is that channels are aggressively tier-gated, so which ones you get depends on how much you pay:
- Free: chat widget and contact form only.
- Mini ($45/mo): adds email, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and X (Twitter) DMs.
- Essentials ($95/mo): unlocks the full omnichannel inbox, including WhatsApp Business, Instagram, SMS, Viber, Line and Discord.
- Plus ($295/mo): keeps all of the above, plus white-labeling and 100+ integrations.
The notable gap is voice. Crisp has no native phone or PSTN support; any phone capability comes through third-party integrations like Aircall or Ringover, and the Twilio plugin is SMS-only. There's also no native support for WeChat, KakaoTalk or TikTok, which matters if your audience leans toward those channels.
My AskAI answers in whatever channels your existing helpdesk routes to it (web chat, email, social and messaging across Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Gorgias and HubSpot), so you add AI without rebuilding your channel setup.
What are the limitations of Crisp's AI?
TL;DR: Crisp is all-or-nothing (you can't add Hugo to an existing helpdesk), it won't train on your past tickets, the mobile app has no AI, and the best AI features sit behind the $295 Plus tier.
This is the section that matters most, because Crisp's marketing reads more polished than the day-to-day experience some long-term customers describe. The most pointed critique on G2 comes from a six-year customer who rated Crisp 1.5 out of 5 in April 2026: "Crisp's adoption of AI… has unfortunately been slow… It feels like the focus on AI is 90% marketing, 10% implementation" via a G2 review.
Here are the limitations that come up most, and the ones most likely to weigh on your decision:
- Crisp is all-or-nothing. This is the big one. Because Hugo is bundled into Crisp's platform, you can't add Crisp's AI on top of an existing helpdesk (the way you'd switch on Fin inside Intercom, or drop a third-party agent into Zendesk). If you already run Zendesk or Intercom, there's no way to keep your stack and just plug in Hugo: using the AI means moving your whole support operation onto Crisp, which is a migration rather than a quick bolt-on.
- Crisp won't train its AI on your past tickets. Crisp is explicit that it does "not use your Inbox Messages to generate automated AI answers to your users for privacy reasons". Your resolved conversations only ever inform agent-facing Copilot suggestions, never the answers Hugo gives customers. That's a meaningful limit, because past tickets are some of the richest training material a support AI can have.
- The best AI features are gated behind the $295 Plus tier. Multilingual AI, the AI Writing Assistant, the MCP Server, AI site search, the spam filter, auto-tagging and conversation summaries are all Plus-only. On the cheaper plans, "Crisp AI" is a noticeably thinner product than the marketing suggests.
- There's no AI in the mobile app. The same long-term G2 reviewer flags it directly: "there's no AI implemented in the app at all (arguably it's the place you need it the most)."
- Analytics are thin. A Capterra reviewer notes you're "unable to extract raw data when doing an export via analytics, only topline numbers come through." If you rely on custom reporting or deep trend analysis, that's a known weak spot.
This is also where our own experience comes in. We used Crisp ourselves in the early days, and it made sense as a free live chat on our site. But as we grew, the feature set started to feel limiting, and we moved to Intercom.
The snag with that move is the one I keep coming back to: when you outgrow Crisp and switch helpdesks, you can't take your AI agent with you. All the training and tuning you put into Hugo stays behind.
That's the gap My AskAI is built to close. My AskAI adds AI inside the helpdesk you already run, and it trains on your resolved tickets (the default backfill is 5,000 tickets, more on request), so even a team without a polished help center can get going from past conversations. Those are the two things Crisp structurally won't do.
What knowledge can I train Crisp's AI on?
TL;DR: Hugo ingests six source types, from Q&A snippets to web pages and files. The big caveat is that past inbox conversations are used only for agent suggestions, never for customer answers.
Hugo and MagicReply pull from six types of data source:
- Answer Snippets: short Q&A pairs you write yourself, up to 1,000 characters per question.
- Knowledge Base articles: synced automatically with Hugo on create, update or delete.
- Web Pages: crawled by Crisp's bot from one or more domains, though only one domain re-imports at a time.
- Files: TXT, CSV and PDF only, and only one document imports at a time.
- Inbox Messages: your past conversations, but only for agent-facing Copilot suggestions, never for customer answers (see the limitation above).
- MCP integrations: live data and actions from connected systems like Shopify and Stripe natively, plus custom servers on Plus.
Crisp also auto-imports knowledge bases from a long list of other tools when you migrate, including Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Gorgias and Help Scout. A per-block confidence slider lets you limit how willing Hugo is to answer when it's unsure, which is a reasonable hallucination guard.
My AskAI draws on a wider set of sources: historic tickets plus connectors for Notion, Confluence, SharePoint, Google Drive, Dropbox, Salesforce and Shopify, on top of your help center. Our Self-Learning feature then keeps that knowledge current by drafting new articles automatically, comparing the AI's reply to what a human agent actually sent on a handed-over ticket.
What features does Crisp's AI have?
TL;DR: The feature set is broad but stratified by tier. The chatbot and Hugo agent start lower down, while multilingual AI, the writing assistant and the MCP server are Plus-only.
Crisp's AI surface area is broad but stratified by tier:
- The AI chatbot and no-code workflow builder start on Essentials.
- The Hugo agent is available from Mini upward, but limited by AI credits.
- The internal Copilot and AI knowledge training start on Essentials.
- The richer features (multilingual AI, the AI Writing Assistant, the MCP Server, AI site search, the spam filter, auto-tagging and conversation summaries) are Plus-only.
A genuinely useful detail in Crisp's model: workflows themselves don't consume Hugo credits, only AI-generated answers do. So deterministic, rules-based chatbot flows are effectively free, and you only pay when the AI brain actually writes a reply. The Playground lets you test with different models, and Plus adds access to 100+ integrations including HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier and Stripe.
My AskAI puts the useful AI in every plan rather than gating it behind a top tier: the AI Copilot Chrome extension is free with no seat charges, and Tasks and Tools run actions like refunds and order lookups.
How do I improve Crisp's AI responses?
TL;DR: Crisp's improvement path is a layered rollout plus weekly review of failed answers. The weak spot is tooling: there's no published evaluation framework or A/B testing, so optimization stays manual.
Crisp's documented improvement playbook is a layered rollout: train Hugo on your existing materials, test in the Playground, activate on trusted channels first, then add the self-service Overlay, then structured workflows, and finally the agent-facing AI tools. Crisp recommends weekly reviews of unsuccessful answers and only expanding the AI's scope once you've hit around 75% accuracy on existing question types.
The weak spot is tooling for this. There's no published evaluation framework, no documented A/B testing for prompt variants, and no quantitative feedback dashboard in the public docs.
The Playground is the closest thing to a QA workbench, and optimization is largely manual. As one G2 reviewer put it, the AI "requires you to build custom workflows, and this isn't easy."
My AskAI leans on automation here. Self-Learning drafts new knowledge articles for you by comparing the AI's replies to your agents' replies, so the knowledge base maintains itself. And when you need to understand why the AI said something, you can ask Echo, our in-dashboard assistant, why the agent gave any answer and which knowledge source it used, rather than digging through logs by hand.
What resolution rate can I expect from Crisp's AI?
TL;DR: Crisp claims "up to 60%", and customer self-reports cluster around 40-60%. There's no independent benchmark, and it isn't always clear whether escalated conversations count toward the figure.
Crisp's headline claim is "resolve up to 60% of your support tickets" on Hugo's homepage, with the homepage framing it as "automate 50% of your inquiries" and the self-service Overlay claiming it can "deflect 30-50% of simple requests".
Crisp's own published customer numbers cluster in the 40-60% band, and I read these as vendor-selected wins rather than a fair average. AFS Foiling reports "around 60% of requests are fully automated"; Emma App says Hugo "resolves approximately 40% of queries autonomously"; Spider-VO reports "around 40% of incoming requests are now fully automated". A Capterra reviewer independently reports "a 40% reduction in queries… due to their AI handling mundane queries".
Two caveats matter when you read those numbers. First, there's no independent third-party benchmark of Crisp's AI; every figure is either Crisp's own marketing or a customer self-report.
Second, the line between deflection and true resolution is blurry. If a conversation that escalates to a human counts in the "resolved" figure, the headline overstates how much Hugo handles on its own, and Crisp doesn't publicly document what counts as a Hugo-resolved conversation. (If that distinction is new to you, we wrote up containment vs deflection vs resolution separately.)
For context, the field median across roughly 55 AI support vendors and 195 rated deployments sits at about 70%, from our own resolution-rate benchmark research. That number comes with a health warning, though: the metric label moves it more than capability does.
A vendor reporting "resolution" tends to look about 12 points higher than one reporting "automation" or "deflection", because each counts a different event. Crisp's "automate 50% / deflect 30-50%" framing isn't measured the same way as a resolution number, so treat any cross-vendor comparison as indicative rather than precise.
My AskAI's rolling resolution rate sits at 72%, which puts it at or above that field median. We count a conversation as resolved when the AI handled it without escalating to a human: a deliberately simple, defensible definition, paired with making it genuinely easy for a customer to ask for a person at any point.
What AI model does Crisp use?
TL;DR: Crisp gives you a choice across five model families, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Gemini, and its own Paris-hosted model for maximum GDPR isolation.
This is an area where Crisp is genuinely flexible. It offers a choice across five model families:
- OpenAI GPT-5 and GPT-5.1 as the default general-purpose options.
- Anthropic Claude 4.5 Sonnet and Haiku for more complex reasoning.
- Mistral Large and Medium as EU-hosted alternatives.
- Google Gemini in technical preview.
- A proprietary internal model that Crisp develops and hosts itself on Scaleway infrastructure in Paris, recommended for organizations that want maximum GDPR isolation, since no data leaves Crisp's own servers.
Two internal models run alongside whichever LLM you pick: a guardrails model that checks responses against your knowledge, and a spam-fighting model. Crisp is also clear that Hugo isn't trained on your inbox conversations and doesn't reuse other customers' messages as a training source.
Model choice isn't unique to Crisp, mind you. We also run a multi-model architecture across OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, routing to the right model per task with continuous A/B testing.
What languages does Crisp's AI work in?
TL;DR: Crisp's chatbox covers 60+ languages and Hugo around 85+, with cross-language retrieval. The catch is that packaged Multilingual AI is a Plus-only feature.
The numbers vary by component. Crisp's chatbox UI is translated into 60+ languages, the Hugo agent reportedly covers 85+, and LiveTranslate (its real-time message translation) handles 50+. Cross-language retrieval works, so a French-trained knowledge base can answer questions asked in English.
There's a real French-and-EU strength here. Crisp is a French company, it offers Mistral models, and its pricing page proudly reads "Made in Europe". The watch-out is that packaged Multilingual AI is a Plus-only feature, so multilingual support as a built-in capability sits at the top tier.
My AskAI handles 95 languages, auto-detected per message, plus a Live Translation feature for agents who can't read the customer's language, and it isn't gated behind a top plan.
How secure is Crisp's AI?
TL;DR: Crisp is strong on GDPR and EU data residency, but it is not SOC 2 audited, has no ISO 27001, and doesn't publicly confirm HIPAA.
Crisp's security story is strong on GDPR and light on enterprise certifications. Both sides deserve a precise look.
On the strong side, Crisp is fully GDPR-compliant as a French company under EU law, with a designated DPO and fast response windows for data requests and breach notifications. All customer data sits in the EU: messaging servers in the Netherlands, plugin servers in Germany, and the proprietary AI model in Paris.
If EU data residency is your priority, Crisp delivers it. The flip side is there's no US data-residency option, which can complicate some US enterprise procurement.
On the lighter side, Crisp is candid in its own documentation that it is not SOC 2 audited (in its words, "Crisp hasn't been over any SOC2 audit"), and there's no ISO 27001 certification and no publicly confirmed HIPAA BAA.
We hold SOC 2 Type II and are GDPR-compliant, which is the bar most mid-market and enterprise procurement teams check for first.
Who is using Crisp's AI?
TL;DR: Crisp skews toward EU and francophone SMBs and Shopify-based e-commerce. Named Hugo customers include Decathlon, Emma App, Reedsy and AFS Foiling, with no Fortune 500 names in independent sources.
Crisp publishes a long list of named customers and Hugo case studies, weighted heavily toward EU and francophone SMBs and Shopify-based e-commerce. Named examples include Decathlon, Emma App (around 40% autonomous resolution), Reedsy (which switched from Intercom and Zendesk), Hoxton Mix, AFS Foiling (around 60% automation), B&B Hotels and Etnia Barcelona.
One thing to read carefully is Crisp's customer count, which varies wildly by source. Its marketing cites "10,000 companies" using Hugo, while its About page and third-party profiles cite "600,000+", a gap that almost certainly reflects the difference between paying customers and everyone who's ever installed the free widget.
Crisp itself is bootstrapped, run by a roughly 20-person remote team out of Nantes, and was founded in 2015 by Baptiste Jamin (CEO) and Valérian Saliou (CTO). No Fortune 500 customers show up in independent sources, and Crisp's center of gravity is firmly SMB.
My AskAI runs AI customer service for 200+ ecommerce and SaaS teams, inside the helpdesk they already use rather than on a platform of its own.
How much does Crisp's AI cost?
TL;DR: Plans run from $0 (Free) to $295/mo (Plus), with Hugo billed per conversation at roughly $0.05-$0.10 each on top. That's cheap, but the cheapest plans include very few AI conversations.
Crisp uses flat per-workspace pricing rather than per-seat, which is a real positive for small teams:
- Free: $0 forever, 2 seats, no AI credits.
- Mini: $45/mo, 4 seats, $5 of AI credits (about 90 Hugo conversations).
- Essentials: $95/mo, 10 seats, $25 of credits (about 450 conversations).
- Plus: $295/mo, 20 seats, $75 of credits (about 1,350 conversations).
Seats are capped per plan, with extra agents at $10 each per month. Hugo itself is billed per conversation, from the first AI-handled message until it's resolved, routed or escalated, at roughly $0.05 to $0.10 each.
The included credits are a dollar value rather than a fixed conversation count, and beyond them you can enable Pay-As-You-Go; without it, Hugo simply stops answering when credits run out. Credits reset on the 4th of each month and don't roll over.
That per-conversation cost is genuinely low, roughly 20× cheaper than Intercom's Fin at around $0.99 per resolution. The watch-out is what the cheapest plans really get you: with only $5 of credits, Mini covers fewer than a hundred AI conversations a month, and the genuinely useful AI features don't arrive until Essentials and Plus.
My AskAI charges per ticket, around $0.10, rather than per resolution, so your bill stays flat as the AI gets better rather than rising with it (we dig into why in our note on AI customer service pricing models). At 10,000 tickets a month and a 75% resolution rate, that works out to roughly $1,299/mo versus around $7,425 for Intercom Fin on the same volume. And you can prove all of it before paying: My AskAI's free trial runs 30 days with all features unlocked, unlimited tickets and no card required.
Does Crisp's AI have a free trial?
TL;DR: Yes, a 14-day trial with no card, plus a permanent Free plan that has no AI credits. Watch out for Hugo credits burning during the trial, with no Pay-As-You-Go to top up.
Crisp offers a 14-day trial with all features and no credit card required, alongside a permanent Free plan that stays available indefinitely (2 seats, 100 customer profiles, the chat widget, but no AI credits and no email channel).
The gotcha to plan around: Hugo credits are consumed during the trial, and Pay-As-You-Go isn't available during it. So your testing and training burn through the trial's credits, and when they run out, Hugo stops, which can cut your evaluation short right when you're getting useful signal.
Is Crisp's AI worth it?
TL;DR: Crisp's AI is a strong fit for lean EU SMBs with tidy FAQs and no existing helpdesk. It's a poor fit for enterprises needing SOC 2, teams that want AI on their current helpdesk, or anyone counting on training from past tickets.
It depends on who you are, and the picture is more mixed than the marketing.
The scores on the doors tell a consistent story for the right buyer: Crisp scores 4.5/5 on G2 (194 reviews), around 4.5 on Capterra, 4.1 on the Shopify App Store and 4.8 on Product Hunt. The enthusiasm is real among the SMBs and e-commerce teams Crisp is built for.
Choose Crisp's AI if…
- You're a bootstrapped or lean SMB, typically under ten agents.
- You're an e-commerce team already on Shopify or WooCommerce.
- You need GDPR-compliant, EU-hosted infrastructure.
- You're a francophone team, or value French-origin tooling.
- You prefer flat workspace pricing over per-seat billing, and run simple, well-maintained FAQs.
Don't choose Crisp's AI if…
- You need SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 or a HIPAA BAA.
- You're already running a helpdesk you like, since Crisp is all-or-nothing.
- You're counting on the AI to learn from your resolved tickets.
- You need deep custom analytics or reporting.
- You run a mobile-first support team, since the mobile app has no AI.
If you're weighing Crisp against running AI inside the helpdesk you already have, here's the quick version:
Crisp (Hugo) | My AskAI | |
Runs on your existing helpdesk | No, all-or-nothing platform | Yes, inside Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Gorgias, HubSpot |
Trains on past tickets | No, excluded for customer answers | Yes, 5,000 tickets by default |
Pricing model | Per conversation, ~$0.05-$0.10 | Per ticket, ~$0.10, flat as AI improves |
Compliance | GDPR, EU-hosted, no SOC 2 | SOC 2 Type II + GDPR |
Languages | Chatbox 60+, Hugo 85+ | 95, auto-detected per message |
The bottom line is straightforward. If your volume is moderate, your knowledge base is tidy, your channel mix is web plus WhatsApp plus email plus e-commerce, and you operate in the EU, Crisp's flat pricing and EU residency are real advantages.
If any of those fail (enterprise compliance, complex reporting, an existing helpdesk you want to keep), the limitations stack up quickly. And if the lock-in question is what's nagging you, I'd take it seriously: the AI you train on Crisp is AI you can't take with you.
For the wider field, see our roundup of the best AI customer service agents for 2026.
What are the pros and cons of Crisp's AI?
Pros
- Genuinely cheap AI: at roughly $0.05-$0.10 per Hugo conversation on flat per-workspace plans, Crisp is one of the lowest-cost ways to put an AI agent on your chat.
- Rare model choice with a strong EU story: five model families, including a Paris-hosted proprietary model, give Crisp an unusually flexible, GDPR-friendly setup.
- Fast, no-code setup with broad SMB channels: the four-step Playground flow and omnichannel reach make it quick to get live for a small team.
Cons
- All-or-nothing platform: you can't run Hugo on top of an existing helpdesk, so using the AI means moving everything onto Crisp.
- No training on past tickets: Crisp won't use your resolved conversations to answer customers, which caps how good the AI can get.
- No SOC 2 or ISO 27001: Crisp is GDPR-strong but lacks the enterprise certifications procurement teams expect.
- Best AI is Plus-gated, and absent on mobile: the most useful AI features sit behind the $295 tier, and the mobile app has no AI at all.
Crisp AI (Hugo)
- Brand: Crisp (Crisp IM SAS)
- Rating: 7/10
- In a sentence: A genuinely affordable, GDPR-friendly AI chat for EU SMBs with tidy FAQs, as long as you're happy to run your whole support stack on Crisp and don't need enterprise compliance or training on your past tickets.
FAQs
What is Crisp AI?
Crisp AI is the stack of AI features inside Crisp's live-chat and helpdesk platform. The centrepiece is Hugo, an autonomous AI agent that answers customer questions, alongside an agent-facing Copilot and older "Magic" self-service tools. It's bundled into Crisp's paid plans rather than sold separately.
What is Hugo in Crisp?
Hugo is Crisp's autonomous AI support agent, marketed by Crisp as its AI core. It answers customer questions across web chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and email, and runs no-code workflows. It's bundled into Crisp's paid plans rather than sold as a standalone product.
How much does Crisp's AI cost?
Crisp's plans run from $0 (Free) to $295/mo (Plus), and Hugo conversations cost roughly $0.05 to $0.10 each on top, drawn from a dollar value of included AI credits per plan. Here's how the plans line up:
Plan | Price/mo | Included AI credits | Approx. Hugo conversations |
Free | $0 | None | None |
Mini | $45 | $5 | ~90 |
Essentials | $95 | $25 | ~450 |
Plus | $295 | $75 | ~1,350 |
Is Crisp AI free?
Crisp has a permanent Free plan, but it includes no AI credits, so Hugo and the AI features need a paid plan. There's also a 14-day free trial of the paid features, though Hugo credits are consumed as you test.
Is Crisp safe and GDPR-compliant?
Yes on GDPR. Crisp is a French company, fully GDPR-compliant, with all data hosted in the EU (Netherlands, Germany and Paris). It does not, however, hold SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification.
Is Crisp SOC 2 compliant?
No. Crisp states in its own documentation that it has not been through a SOC 2 audit. It's GDPR-compliant and EU-hosted, but if you need a SOC 2 Type II report, Crisp doesn't have one.
Can I use Crisp's AI on top of Zendesk or Intercom?
No. Crisp's AI is bundled into the Crisp platform, so you can't add Hugo as a layer on an existing Zendesk or Intercom setup; you'd have to move your whole support operation onto Crisp. (If you want to keep your helpdesk, this is where a tool like My AskAI, which runs inside your existing helpdesk, differs.)
Does Crisp's AI learn from past tickets?
No. Crisp explicitly excludes your past inbox conversations from generating customer answers, for privacy reasons. Your history only informs agent-facing Copilot suggestions, never Hugo's replies to customers.
What resolution rate does Crisp's AI achieve?
Crisp claims "up to 60%", and its published customer reports cluster around 40-60% automation. There's no independent benchmark, and it's not always clear whether escalated conversations count toward the figure, so treat the headline as a ceiling rather than a guarantee.
What AI models does Crisp use?
Crisp lets you choose across OpenAI (GPT-5 and 5.1), Anthropic (Claude 4.5), Mistral, Google Gemini (in preview), and its own proprietary model hosted in Paris. Two internal models, a guardrails model and a spam filter, run alongside whichever you pick.
How many languages does Crisp's AI support?
Crisp's chatbox UI covers 60+ languages, the Hugo agent around 85+, and its LiveTranslate feature 50+. Packaged Multilingual AI, however, is a Plus-tier feature.
Who is the CEO of Crisp?
Crisp was founded in 2015 by Baptiste Jamin, who is CEO, and Valérian Saliou, who is CTO. It's a bootstrapped, roughly 20-person company based in Nantes, France.
What are the best Crisp AI alternatives?
The right alternative depends on what's pushing you away from Crisp. If it's the all-or-nothing platform, look at AI agents that run inside your existing helpdesk; if it's resolution quality, look at tools that train on past tickets. Our roundup of the best AI customer service agents for 2026 has the full comparison.
