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Topics are AI-discovered conversation themes that group related messages across your data sources. They’re the primary way Modem helps you understand what users are talking about.

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How Topics Are Created

As messages arrive from your connected sources, Modem analyzes them and groups related conversations into topics. When a conversation fits an existing topic, it’s added to that topic. When it describes something new about your product, Modem creates a new topic. Modem skips conversations that aren’t about your product, such as logistics chatter, bot notifications, or internal ops, so they never become topics. A conversation can raise more than one concern, so a single conversation can contribute to several topics. Each topic keeps track of the conversations it was built from (see Sources below).
Topics are generated automatically. You don’t need to tag, label, or categorize messages yourself.

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What a Topic Contains

Each topic has an AI-generated title and summary, along with a priority level and the people involved.

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Feedback Classification

Each topic is classified by feedback type: Not every topic fits one of these categories. Topics that don’t are classified as Discussion: general conversation, coordination, and questions. You can filter Discussion topics in or out of the list.

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Summaries

Modem generates summaries to help you scan topics quickly:
  • Topic summary. A short overview of what the topic is about and its key themes.
  • Evidence timeline. The messages behind the topic, in order, alongside the topic’s change history, so you can trace any point in the summary back to its source.

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Sources

Each topic lists the conversations, issues, and pull requests it was derived from under Sources. They can come from different channels and different times. For example, a topic about “API rate limiting” might draw on:
  • A Slack #support thread about rate limit errors (January)
  • A Discord #suggestions post asking for rate limit headers (March)
  • A GitHub issue about incorrect 429 responses (May)
Sources help you see how a topic evolved over time and jump to the original conversation.

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Working with Topics

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Browsing

Navigate to Topics in your dashboard to see discovered topics, sorted by most recent activity. Depending on your organization’s settings, the list may open on a default view that hides some topics, such as Discussion and very-low-priority topics. Switch the view or clear those filters to see everything. Filter by:
  • Search. Find topics by keyword in the title.
  • Type. Bug report, feature request, complaint, praise, or discussion.
  • Priority. Very low through very high.
  • Lifecycle. Open, in progress, completed, dismissed, or unknown.
  • People. Topics a specific person has participated in.
  • Category. Filter by topic keywords or tags.
  • Product. Topics about a specific product, when your organization has products set up.
  • Company. Topics where a specific company’s users have participated.
  • Channel. Topics from a specific source.
  • Ticket status. Topics with or without a linked ticket.
  • Team response. Whether your team has responded.
Most filters can be switched between is and is not to include or exclude values. Some filters aren’t available on every organization’s topic list.

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Searching

The search box matches keywords in topic titles. Wrap a word in double quotes to match that exact word, so "persona" doesn’t match “personal.”
To find topics by meaning rather than exact words, ask the Modem Agent, for example “Which topics are about authentication problems?”

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Topic Details

Click on a topic to see:
  • The summary and the evidence timeline of messages behind it
  • People involved and their contributions
  • Sources: the conversations, issues, and pull requests the topic was derived from
  • Products and keywords assigned to the topic
  • Priority and lifecycle state, which you can change
  • Change history

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Automations

Topic activity can trigger automations. You can create trigger automations that run when:
  • A new topic is created.
  • A topic reaches high priority. Depending on how your organization scores priority, this fires at High or at Very high.
  • A conversation is added to a topic, or gets a follow-up on one. These events currently cover X sources, and the automation must be scoped to specific channels or products.
Use these when you want Modem to react immediately, for example by posting an alert to Slack, creating follow-up work, or sending a summary to the right team.

Companies & People

Unified profiles for users and organizations.

The Modem Agent

Ask questions and take action using natural language.