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I have been using front for about a week, and initially had no topics. Then on Sept 30th, four topics were created. No new topics were created since then.

My questions on topics are:

  1. Will they automatically appear or does it take 30 days (as per your docs) for Front to evaluate new topics?
  2. If it does take 30 days since the last discovery, is there a way to “trigger” new topic discovery?
  3. If a flood of new emails come in about a new topic, such as a live site issue, will Front be able to create a new topic on the fly as needed without having to wait 30 days?

Thanks in advance for your clarifications!

Hi ​@specialwhip

Happy to shed some additional light on topics and your specific questions 🔦

  • Topics do not appear instantly for every new pattern. Front initially identifies Topics from up to 10,000 conversations from the past 30 days after Topics are enabled (the docs say it may take 1–2 hours to identify Topics on initial setup, and it will also evaluate up to the last 30 days of conversations).

  • After that initial discovery, Front will attempt to discover new Topics only when at least 30 days have passed since the last Topic discovery.

  • There’s no user control to “force” or trigger topic discovery on demand in the product today.

More detail / implications for your three questions

  1. Will they automatically appear or does it take 30 days?

  • Front will automatically identify Topics. For the initial identification it looks at up to 30 days of historical conversations (and can take a couple hours to finish). For ongoing discovery, the product runs Topic discovery on a cadence such that Front discovers new Topics if 30 or more days have passed since the last discovery.

  1. Can you trigger new topic discovery?

  • Not currently. The docs say new Topics are discovered when 30+ days have passed since the last discovery. There’s no documented way for a user/admin to manually trigger topic discovery today.

  1. If there’s a sudden flood about a new, urgent issue (e.g., site outage), will Front create a Topic on the fly?

  • Front will apply existing Topics to new incoming conversations immediately. However, for the AI to create a brand-new Topic from scratch, the product follows the discovery cadence (30+ days since last discovery). That means a sudden short-term flood is unlikely to produce a newly created Topic instantly. For urgent incidents, rely on other mechanisms (rules, tags, macros, or Inbox routing) to triage and escalate immediately rather than waiting for the Topics discovery cadence.

Source for further reading 📚


Thanks for the clarification!

What about AI Tagging, which I see is currently in closed beta. That seems more suitable for emerging topics. Is that feature going to exist alongside topics? Can my account be added to the beta feature?


Hey ​@specialwhip
 

You're asking some great questions about the future of automated analysis in Front. While the AI Tagging beta is now closed and we wouldn't be able to add your account, the great news is that its capabilities have been evolved into our newer, more powerful feature: Topics.

Think of Topics as the next generation of AI Tagging, built to be more dynamic and insightful.

 

AI Tagging vs. Topics
 

You're right that AI Tagging was useful, but it relied on a predefined list of tags. For emerging issues, this meant you had to know what you were looking for.

Topics is our strategic direction moving forward and is designed to solve this exact problem. It automatically analyzes the content of your conversations to surface trends and insights—including new issues you aren't aware of yet. This allows you to be more proactive and understand the "why" behind your customer conversations.

 

Getting Started with Topics
 

We believe Topics will be a perfect fit for your goal of tracking emerging trends, especially with time as more topics are created. You can learn more about how it works and how to set it up in our help center.

➡️ Help Center Article: Use Topics to automatically organize conversations

Let me know if you have any questions after checking it out!