Put Your AI Assistant on Your Own Email Domain (Custom Domain Setup)
When an AI assistant emails a client, the from-address does a lot of quiet work. assistant@somevendor.com reads like a robot the moment it lands. alex@yourcompany.com reads like a member of your team. Same message, very different reception, and the difference is entirely in the domain.
If you run an AI assistant that emails people on your behalf, putting it on your own domain is the upgrade that makes it feel like staff instead of software. This guide walks through what a branded from-address actually requires, why the DNS pieces (DKIM, SPF) matter for landing in the inbox, and the exact self-serve flow for standing up a custom sending domain in Carly. The DNS guidance is registrar-neutral, so it applies whether your domain lives at GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, or Google Workspace.
Why the from-address decides whether people trust the email
Every Carly agent has its own email address out of the box. You email it, CC it on a thread, or forward it work, and the finished result comes back from inside email, the way a coworker would reply. By default that address lives on a Carly domain, which is fine for internal use. The moment your assistant starts emailing clients, prospects, or partners, you want it on your brand.
Two things happen when you move to your own domain:
- Recognition. Recipients see your company in the from-address, not a third-party tool. Replies come back to your brand, and the whole exchange looks like it came from your office.
- Deliverability. A branded address is only half the story. Mailbox providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) decide inbox-versus-spam largely on authentication. If the sending domain is properly signed and aligned, your mail is far more likely to land in the inbox instead of the promotions tab or the spam folder.
That authentication is what the DNS setup is for. It is worth understanding the two records that do the heavy lifting before you paste anything.
DKIM and SPF in plain terms
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a public list, published in your DNS, of who is allowed to send email as your domain. When a receiving server gets a message claiming to be from yourcompany.com, it checks that list. If the sending infrastructure is on it, the message passes; if not, it looks forged.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a cryptographic signature. Your domain publishes a public key in DNS; the sending system signs each message with the matching private key. The receiver verifies the signature and knows the message genuinely came from your domain and was not tampered with in transit.
Together they produce what deliverability people call alignment: the visible from-address, the SPF-authorized sender, and the DKIM signature all point at the same domain. Aligned mail is trusted mail. This is exactly what modern inbox providers reward, and it is why “just change the display name” is not enough. You need the records.
The four-step custom domain setup in Carly
Standing up a branded sending domain is an Enterprise / org feature, configured in your org portal. It is genuinely close to self-serve: no support ticket, no AWS console, no back-and-forth pasting tokens to an engineer. The only real work is copying a handful of DNS records into your registrar. Here is the whole flow.
Step 1: Add your domain and reveal the records
In the org portal, type your sending domain (yourcompany.com) and hit Add domain. The portal immediately shows the exact DNS records you need, each with a one-click Copy button. There is no waiting on a human to generate anything. You will see:
- One verification TXT record. This proves you control the domain.
- Three DKIM CNAME records. These point at the signing keys so every message can be signed.
- One SPF row. This authorizes the sending infrastructure. The portal shows a Google-Workspace-specific variant if you use Workspace, plus a clear warning: do not create a second SPF record.
That SPF warning matters more than it looks, so it gets its own note below.
Step 2: Paste the records at your registrar
Log into wherever your DNS lives (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, Google Domains, Route 53, your host’s DNS panel) and add the records exactly as shown. A few registrar-neutral tips:
- For the CNAME records, some hosts automatically append your domain to the name field. If a value looks doubled up like
selector._domainkey.yourcompany.com.yourcompany.com, strip the trailing part so it resolves correctly. - Copy values verbatim. DKIM keys are long strings, and a single dropped character breaks the signature.
- Leave TTL at the default. A lower TTL just means changes propagate a bit faster.
Step 3: Forward the mailbox and add your addresses and signatures
So replies land back with your agent, forward each sending address’s mailbox to Carly’s ingest address. Then add the specific addresses you want to send from and the signatures that go on them. You can do all of this right away, before verification finishes, so the domain is fully configured the moment DNS is ready.
Step 4: Verify and go live
Back in the portal, hit Verify and go live. Carly checks your DNS live. The instant DKIM propagates, the domain flips to Verified, your domain is live. If DNS is not ready yet, you get a friendly “DNS can take a little while, check again soon” rather than a hard failure.
One reassuring detail: nothing sends from your domain until verification is confirmed. You are never in a state where mail goes out unsigned or unaligned, and you are never blocked waiting on someone at a support desk. The mail infrastructure behind all of this (the actual sending, key rotation, and signing) is handled for you. You bring the domain; Carly takes care of the rest.
How long DKIM takes and what “propagation” means
The most common question after pasting records is why the domain does not verify instantly. DNS changes have to spread across the internet’s caching layers, and different resolvers refresh on their own schedules. In practice DKIM and SPF changes are often live within a few minutes to a half hour, but they can take up to 24 to 48 hours depending on your registrar and cached TTLs, as email providers consistently document. If it is not verified on your first check, that is normal. Add the records, then check again a little later.
The distinction worth being clear about
This is not the same thing as a chatbot with a send button. General assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini can compose email, and some can now push a message out through a connector: as of mid-2026, ChatGPT can send through the Gmail connector with your approval, while Claude and Gemini remain draft-only, creating a draft you still click send on yourself. Useful, but that is you sending from your logged-in inbox during a chat session. None of them is an assistant that has its own address, on your own domain, that you and your colleagues can email and CC like a teammate.
There is also a wave of developer tooling (products like AgentMail) that gives a software agent its own inbox through an API. That is infrastructure for engineers building applications, not an assistant a professional emails to get work done. A few scheduling tools such as CalendarBridge also offer a branded sending domain for their bot. The category exists. What Carly does is combine the branded, DKIM-signed, SPF-aligned domain with an assistant that actually finishes the work end to end: scheduling across Google Calendar and Microsoft 365, inbox triage, follow-ups, recurring briefs, and multi-step workflows across almost any app you use.
If you want the fuller picture of the email-native model itself, the AI assistant you can email explains how the pattern works, and giving your AI agent a name and email personality covers the branding side. For the setup above, the practical takeaway is that a branded assistant is a DNS afternoon, not an engineering project.
Pricing note for context: Carly gives you free, unlimited Zapier-style workflows, with AI agents starting at $35/month. The custom sending domain is part of the Enterprise / org tier and is set up in your org portal, no separate infrastructure to buy.
FAQ
How long does DKIM take to verify after I add the records?
Usually a few minutes to about half an hour, but it can take up to 24 to 48 hours depending on your registrar and DNS caching. If Carly says the domain is not verified on your first check, that is expected. Give it time and check again rather than assuming the records are wrong.
Why shouldn’t I create a second SPF record?
A domain may only have one SPF record. Publishing two causes a “permerror,” and receiving servers treat the whole check as invalid, which hurts deliverability. If you already have an SPF record (common if you use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), you merge the new sending mechanism into the existing record instead of adding a separate one. The portal shows the Google-Workspace variant so you can combine them correctly.
What if verification is stuck?
First confirm the records were pasted exactly, with no extra characters and no accidentally doubled domain in the CNAME name field. Then confirm your registrar did not append your domain a second time. If both look right, the usual cause is propagation delay, so wait and re-run Verify and go live. Nothing sends from your domain until it verifies, so a stuck check never puts unsigned mail on the wire.
Will my email land in spam without a custom domain?
Not necessarily. Carly’s default address is properly authenticated, so it delivers fine. A custom domain mainly buys you brand recognition and full alignment on your domain’s reputation, which matters most when the assistant emails clients and prospects rather than teammates.
Can I use my domain for more than one address?
Yes. Once the domain is verified, you add as many sending addresses and signatures on it as you need, so different agents or roles can each have a branded from-address on the same domain.
Do I need to touch AWS or run any mail servers?
No. There is no AWS console, no mail server to run, and no support ticket. You paste DNS records at your registrar; the sending infrastructure, signing, and key management are handled for you.
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