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> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.moveworks.com/llms.txt.
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# Proactivity

Most assistant conversations start with an employee's message. Proactivity covers the cases where Moveworks sends the first message: an ambient agent reacting to a system event or a schedule, an Employee Communications campaign broadcast to a chosen audience, and the notifications that built-in skills such as ticketing and approvals send on their own. Notifications Settings govern where and when all of these are delivered.

Proactive messages are delivered through the chatbot deployed in your chat system. When you deploy a chatbot, the final step is adding it under **Notification Routes** so notifications can reach users on that channel; [Configure Moveworks Assistant](/ai-assistant/introduction-to-assistant/deploy-bots) covers both the chatbot configuration and the route.

## Three ways the assistant reaches out

#### [Ambient Agents](/ai-assistant/ambient-agents)

Monitor enterprise systems continuously and detect events or changes to start workflows automatically, including messages and interactive notifications to users.

#### [Employee Communications](/ai-assistant/capabilities/employee-communications)

Broadcast custom messages to all or a subset of users through the assistant, with scheduling, reminders, and engagement reporting.

#### [Notifications Settings](/ai-assistant/capabilities/moveworks-setup-notifications-settings)

Rank chat systems for notification outreach, map chatbots to routes, filter recipients with rules, and limit delivery to business hours.

## Choosing between them

Use an ambient agent when the trigger is an event or a schedule in a connected system, for example a new high-priority ticket or a weekly scan for inactive licenses, and the response may involve reasoning, approvals, or actions in other systems. An ambient agent is a plugin whose trigger type is set to System, either Webhook or Schedule. It follows a Listen, Understand, Act cycle: a system trigger detects the signal and feeds it into a compound action that interprets the event and executes the response.

Use Employee Communications when a person decides what to say and who should hear it: policy announcements, migration notices, benefits changes, or recurring reminders. Campaigns can target everyone the assistant can message, users filtered by attributes such as department or location, email groups, a list uploaded as a CSV, or new hires. They can be sent immediately, scheduled for later, or set to recur, and the campaign page reports delivery and engagement. Employee Communications requires an active license for your organization, and publishing a campaign requires the Employee Comms Admin or Publisher role.

Notifications Settings applies to everything above. It sets the default priority order of chat systems for notifications, used until a user sets a preferred chat system, which chatbot serves each route, and whether company business hours or a rule restricts who is notified. It also holds the option to disable all proactive notifications except Employee Communications.

## Building ambient agents

Ambient agents are built in Tools. The concept page under Proactivity explains the pattern and links to the system trigger quickstarts; the triggers, actions, and compound action reference live under [Automation](/tool-studio/automation), and the [Ambient Agents Cookbook](/tool-studio/cookbooks/ambient-agents-cookbook) collects architecture and sequence diagrams for each trigger type.

## Go deeper

#### [Quickstart: Notification Ambient Agent](/tool-studio/quickstart-guide/webhook-triggers-quickstart-guide)

Build an agent that receives a webhook, finds the right user by email, and sends a notification in chat.

#### [Quickstart: Scheduled Trigger Ambient Agent](/tool-studio/quickstart-guide/quickstart-7-scheduled-trigger-ambient-agent)

Build an agent that runs on a schedule and sends a weekly analysis to a target user.

#### [Integration Rate Limits](/ai-assistant/capabilities/moveworks-setup-notifications-settings/moveworks-product-rate-limits-chat-systems-apis-etc)

The requests per minute Moveworks allows itself per chat system when sending campaigns and notifications.

#### [How To Configure Employee Comms](/ai-assistant/capabilities/employee-communications/mw-setup-audience-builder)

Prerequisites, roles, and the steps to create and publish a campaign.

#### [Campaign Examples](/ai-assistant/capabilities/employee-communications/employee-communications-campaign-examples)

Message templates for popular one-time campaigns, such as IT announcements and reminders.

#### [Recurring Campaign Examples](/ai-assistant/capabilities/employee-communications/employee-communications-recurring-campaign-examples)

Message templates for recurring scenarios, such as new hire onboarding.

> **Note**
>
> If employees reach the assistant through a [Conversations API](/api-reference/conversations-api/overview) integration rather than a native chat platform, system-initiated messages are delivered to your integration by outbound webhook or polling. See the [Proactive notifications overview](/api-reference/conversations-api/proactive-notifications/overview). The Conversations API is in Controlled Availability.

## Also in This Section

* [Ambient Agent FAQs](/ai-assistant/ambient-agents/ambient-agent-faqs)
* [Writing Translation-Ready Employee Comms Campaigns](/ai-assistant/capabilities/employee-communications/writing-translation-ready-employee-comms-campaigns)
* [Employee Communications Error Codes & Resolution Guidance](/ai-assistant/capabilities/employee-communications/employee-communications-error-codes-resolution-guidance)