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AI Employees are the specialists that do the work in Echelon. Each one is focused on a particular job — reaching out to leads, handling replies, chasing invoices, running sequences, or sending reminders. This guide walks you through creating your first AI Employee, from choosing its role to activating it in your workspace. Your plan determines how many AI Employees you can have active at once: 3 on Starter, 6 on Growth, and 10 on Scale.

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Create a new AI Employee

1

Open the AI Employees section

From your Echelon dashboard, navigate to AI Employees and click New AI Employee.
2

Choose a role

Select the type of work this employee will handle. Available roles include:
  • Outreach — sends first-touch messages to new or cold leads
  • Replies — manages inbound responses and keeps conversations moving
  • Billing — handles invoices, payment reminders, and billing updates
  • Reminders — sends follow-up messages based on time or event triggers
  • Sequences — runs multi-step automated message flows
Pick the role that matches the job you need done. You can create multiple employees with different roles.
3

Set a name and description

Give your AI Employee a name (for example, “Outreach — SMB Leads” or “Billing — Enterprise”). This name appears in your dashboard and helps you identify which employee is running which tasks.Add a short description of what this employee is responsible for. This is for your reference only and does not affect behavior.
4

Configure behavior

Depending on the role you selected, you will see a set of behavior options. Configure:
  • Tone — how formal or conversational the employee’s messages should be
  • Channels — which connected channels (email, WhatsApp, SMS) this employee can use
  • Working hours — the time window in which this employee can send messages
  • Follow-up rules — how many times to follow up and how long to wait between attempts
The channels available here depend on your plan. Email is available on all plans. WhatsApp and SMS require a Growth or Scale plan.
5

Review and activate

Review your configuration, then click Activate. The employee will move to an active state and be ready to accept tasks from the AI Manager or from sequences you assign it to.

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Tips for getting the best results

One role per employee

Keep each AI Employee focused on a single job. A dedicated outreach employee performs better than one trying to handle outreach and billing at the same time.

Set clear working hours

Define working hours that match your customers’ time zones. Messages sent outside business hours often see lower engagement.

Start with conservative follow-up rules

Begin with a modest number of follow-ups and a longer wait time between them. You can tighten the cadence once you see how your contacts respond.

Use descriptive names

Name your employees by role and segment — for example, “Replies — Enterprise” — so you can tell at a glance what each one is doing when reviewing activity in the dashboard.
After activating your first AI Employee, activate your AI Manager to let it orchestrate tasks, assign work to your employees automatically, and surface weekly strategy reports.

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What’s next

Build sequences

Connect your AI Employee to an automated sequence of messages and actions.

Automate billing

Set up a billing AI Employee to handle invoices and payment reminders.