New in AppReply: Automate replies to featured reviews, plus faster AI on GPT-5.6

Featured reviews aren't something you get to pick. Apple and Google choose them algorithmically and put them front and center: an App Store carousel of 8-10 reviews per locale, 3-4 on Google Play visible to every single visitor. There's no setting on either platform to keep a bad one out.

That's the risk. If a 1-star review gets picked, it's the first thing anyone considering your app reads, and it can sit there for months. A single bad review, given that kind of permanent front-page placement, is exactly the sort of thing that can move conversion by double digits. It's not a review problem at that point, it's a reputation problem.

Most reply automations don't even reach these reviews, since featured reviews are often much older than the recency window your rules are scoped to. This release closes that gap, and upgrades the models writing your replies.

1. Apply your automations to featured reviews too

You shouldn't need a separate automation just because a review happens to be old and featured. Every automation builder now has a Featured reviews section with a single toggle: Also reply to featured reviews.

The "Also reply to featured reviews" toggle in the automation builder

Turn it on and the rule's normal trigger conditions, rating, keywords, whatever you've already set, keep working exactly the same. The only thing that changes is the age limit: a featured review no longer has to be recent to qualify. A 2-star featured review from eight months ago gets picked up by your negative-review rule the same way a 2-star review from yesterday would.

If you'd rather build a rule that targets featured reviews exclusively, that option already existed as a condition:

The "Review is featured" condition in the automation builder's trigger conditions

A few details worth knowing:

• Works for featured reviews on both Google Play and the App Store.
• If a rule already uses the "Review is featured" condition, it's already featured-only, so the toggle won't show up for it. Nothing redundant to configure.
• Available on Pro.
• In our experience, replying to a negative featured review is often the thing that gets it rotated out of that spot. Once it's been addressed, it stops reading like an open complaint, and stops holding the "helpful" signal that kept it surfaced in the first place.

2. Faster AI replies, now on GPT-5.6

We upgraded the models behind reply generation. Automated replies, run through your automations, now use a new GPT-5.6 model that's better and faster than what it replaced, a straightforward upgrade with nothing to turn on.

The manual Generate AI response button, for when you want to hand-craft a reply to one specific review, now uses an even higher-quality GPT-5.6 variant. We don't compromise on quality, which is exactly why this button gets our best model: when you reach for it, you want the best possible answer for that review, full stop.

Together, this means faster turnaround on every automated reply, and a noticeably better draft when you generate one yourself.

Availability

The Also reply to featured reviews toggle is live in both automation builders, in the new Featured reviews section, on Pro. The GPT-5.6 upgrade is already live on every account for both automated and manually generated replies, with nothing to configure.