The DMs inbox is a dedicated screen for handling direct messages on Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Every inbound DM lands here, the agent prepares an AI draft reply, and a teammate reviews and clicks Send.
Find it in the left sidebar under DMs, between Comments and Automations.
What the inbox does
- Collects every inbound Messenger and Instagram DM in one chat-style view.
- Generates an AI-drafted reply for each new message, using the agent's brand context, knowledge base, and optional DM-specific instructions.
- Waits for a teammate to review the draft and hit Send before anything leaves the platform.
- Lets a teammate take over manually at any point, which pauses AI drafting on that conversation.
- Tracks the 24-hour reply window that Meta enforces, so you know how much time is left before a conversation closes.
Drafts only, no auto-send
During the beta, every AI-generated DM reply is staged for human review. Nothing is sent to a customer automatically. This is intentional. Once the beta concludes we'll add auto-send modes, but for now the human-in-the-loop guarantee is part of the product.
How this is different from automation DMs
ReplyZen has had automation-triggered DMs for a while: a comment matches a trigger ("customer asks about returns"), and the automation sends a follow-up DM to that user. That's a one-shot send, fired in response to a comment.
The DMs inbox handles a different case: a customer messages your page on their own, without ever commenting. There's no automation to react. You need a conversation, not a single send.
The two work together. If an automation kicks off a DM and the user replies, the conversation continues in the same inbox thread. The thread header even shows a "Triggered by a comment" link so you can jump back to the comment that started it.
What you need
- Your team must be in the DM inbox beta. The DMs section appears in the sidebar only for enrolled teams. Reach out to support if you'd like access.
- Each Page you want covered must have an agent assigned with DM handling enabled (covered next).
- Messenger / Instagram webhooks must be configured on the connected Page (handled automatically during Page setup).
Next steps
Once your team is in the beta, enable DM handling on the agent that should draft replies.
NEXT ARTICLE