Independently Resolved (IR) tickets are support conversations fully handled by AI from first contact to resolution without any human agent involvement. This is the numerator in most automation rate calculations.

A ticket qualifies as IR when the AI handled every message in the conversation, the ticket reached a closed state, and the customer accepted the outcome. The definition sounds simple but implementation gets messy fast. Does a ticket count as IR if it was auto-closed after 24 hours of inactivity? What if the customer silently abandoned in frustration? What if the AI confidently gave wrong information that the customer didn't catch?

Mature teams add guardrails to their IR definition: no reopens within 72 hours, no negative CSAT scores, no detected escalation language. Some run QA sampling on a percentage of IR tickets to catch false positives—tickets marked resolved where the AI actually failed.

The gap between reported IR and true IR is where vendor metrics diverge from reality. If your AI vendor claims 70% IR but your CSAT is dropping and repeat contacts are rising, the IR definition is too loose.

Related terms: Effective Automation Rate, Resolution Rate, Success Rate, Match Rate