When you turn on smart inbox settings, Tern reads incoming emails from your travelers and suppliers, figures out which trip each one belongs to, and proposes what to do next. You review and confirm every action before anything is saved.
What it does
Email triage handles the first pass on your inbox so booking details, deadlines, and traveler questions don't get lost. For each incoming email it covers, Tern finds the related trip, proposes linking the email to it, and suggests a next step: confirming a booking, flagging a deadline, drafting a reply, or updating trip details.
It never acts on its own. Every suggestion appears as a card in an AI chat. Click Accept (or Send, for a reply) to apply it, or Reject to discard it. Chats waiting on you appear under Waiting for input in your AI chats, and a dot appears on the AI chat icon.
Note: Email triage uses AI and counts toward your monthly AI usage.
How to turn it on
Triage is off until you enable it. There are two switches, so you can turn on one or both.
Before you start
Create chats from supplier confirmation emails needs a connected inbox. Go to Settings, then Email & Scheduling, and connect your Google or Microsoft account.
Create chats from contact emails works without one, but then it only covers replies to emails you sent from Tern. With a connected inbox, it covers every email from your saved contacts.
Steps
Go to Email & Scheduling. In Settings, select Email & Scheduling.
Find Smart inbox settings. This section holds the two triage switches.
Turn on the emails you want Tern to read.
Create chats from contact emails covers emails from your saved traveler contacts.
Create chats from supplier confirmation emails covers booking confirmations from suppliers. This switch stays off until your inbox is connected.
You'll know it worked when
New emails from your travelers or supplier confirmations start appearing as chats in Tern with a proposed action for you to review.
How it works
Once enabled, Tern reads each covered email, finds the right trip, and proposes actions:
It proposes linking the email to a trip. Tern matches the email against your trips using signals like dates, destinations, supplier names, travelers, and confirmation numbers. When it finds a confident match, it proposes the link as a card. Once you accept, the email appears on the trip's Emails tab. Linking the email to the right trip is the main goal of triage, even when no other action is needed.
It proposes an action for you to confirm. If the email needs a next step, Tern proposes it alongside the trip link. Most emails produce the trip link plus one action; a few produce two (for example, creating a new contact and a new trip together). If the email needs no action, Tern says so and does nothing.
The original email always stays on the conversation. Triage never copies it into a separate note.
Actions Tern will propose
A booking confirmation from a supplier. If the booking is already on the trip as "planning," Tern proposes marking it as booked. If it's a new booking, Tern proposes adding it to the itinerary. If the details changed, Tern proposes a task describing what changed. If the trip isn't in Tern yet, Tern proposes creating the trip (and the traveler's contact) so the booking isn't lost.
A deadline you need to act on. If a supplier sets a specific response deadline (a hold expiring, a waitlist clearing, a name list due), Tern proposes a task with that due date.
A question from a traveler. If a traveler asks something that needs a reply (dietary needs, room sharing, transfer timing, or your opinion on options), Tern drafts a reply on the same email conversation. Nothing sends until you click Send.
New traveler or trip details. For things like passport info, dates of birth, or dietary preferences, Tern proposes updating the relevant contact or trip.
Who receives a drafted reply
A drafted reply goes to everyone else who has been on that email conversation, not only the people on the latest message. The card's To list shows them, but you can't remove anyone or edit the text on the card. To change the wording, ask the AI in the chat to revise it. If someone shouldn't receive it, click Reject and reply from the conversation instead, where you choose the recipients.
Emails Tern marks as no action
For emails that don't need a step, Tern takes no action and tells you why. These include marketing blasts and newsletters, generic pre-trip reminders, payment reminders that don't change anything, birthday and industry-day greetings, out-of-office auto-replies, notifications from other software, and messages from other agencies unrelated to your trips.
Note: Nothing Tern proposes is saved until you accept it. You always approve trip links, bookings, tasks, replies, and trip changes yourself.
Key terms
Email triage is Tern's AI reading and organizing your incoming email. It is not the same as Automations, which are the workflows and triggered emails you set up yourself. See "Automation in Tern" for that feature.