How to add an AI chatbot to WhatsApp

Your customers already have WhatsApp open. It’s where they message family, order food, and ping businesses, so when they have a question about you, that’s where they ask.

The problem is speed. A thread that sits unanswered for an hour feels like a slammed door, and the same handful of questions arrive all day. Connect WhatsApp to Supportweave and the AI answers every inbound message itself — the same knowledge-grounded pipeline that runs your website widget — and the reply goes straight back out on WhatsApp, so the customer gets a real answer in seconds without leaving the app. When someone asks for a real person (or you run out of message credits), the thread flips to your team's wait queue with its real arrival time, fires a desktop alert so nobody misses it, and the customer hears that help is on the way. Want a human on every thread instead? A per-channel AI replies switch turns WhatsApp human-first, and the AI copilot drafts each reply for your team to review and send.

What you'll need

• A Supportweave workspace (set up during your demo)
• A trained chatbot ready to answer
• A Meta developer account and a WhatsApp Business phone number (Meta’s test number works to start)

Step 1: Train your agent

Before you connect anything, give the agent something to say. Crawl your site, upload your docs, and add the FAQs you already get every day. Our training guide walks through doing it well so the answers it sends stay grounded in your real content.

Step 2: Create a Meta app and add WhatsApp

1. 1Go to developers.facebook.com and sign in.
2. 2Create a new app and choose the Business app type.
3. 3From the app dashboard, add the WhatsApp product.

Step 3: Connect your WhatsApp Business number

In Meta Business Manager, connect the WhatsApp Business phone number you want to use, or start with the test number Meta provides. The test number lets you try the whole flow before you commit a real line.

Step 4: Get your webhook details from Supportweave

In Supportweave, open the chatbot you want to handle WhatsApp, go to its Channels tab, and pick WhatsApp. (Channels are set per chatbot — there’s no separate global Channels page.) Supportweave hands you a Callback URL and a verify token, the exact values you’ll paste into Meta. Leave this tab open.

Step 5: Add the webhook in Meta

1. 1In your Meta app, open WhatsApp → Configuration.
2. 2Under Webhooks, click Edit.
3. 3Paste the Callback URL and verify token from Supportweave, then verify and save.
4. 4In the webhook fields list, subscribe to the messages field.

That subscription is what actually delivers incoming messages to your agent. Skip it and the webhook verifies but nothing arrives.

Step 6: Send a test message

Message your WhatsApp Business number from your own phone and ask a real question. Within moments the AI answers right in the thread, grounded in your knowledge base — nobody on your team had to touch it. Open the shared inbox in Supportweave and the conversation is there, tagged WhatsApp, with the AI's reply already logged. Now ask to speak to a person: the thread flips to needing a human and joins the wait queue, and if you’ve turned on desktop alerts your browser pings you the moment it does. A teammate opens it, replies from the inbox, and it goes straight back out on the same WhatsApp number. If nothing shows up in the inbox at all, recheck that the messages field is subscribed and that the number is connected.

Desktop alerts are opt-in per browser — flip them on from the inbox header or Settings → Notifications.

Take it further

• Every message is auto-tagged with intent, sentiment, and a lead score, so your team triages at a glance
• Repeat customers merge into one contact timeline across every channel, so context follows them
• The AI answers on WhatsApp just like it does in your website widget — always within your plan's message quota, credit balance, and spend cap
• Prefer your team on every thread? Turn off AI replies for the channel and each message waits in the inbox, with an AI copilot drafting a suggested reply and writing handoff summaries
• Connect Messenger, Instagram, or SMS to the same shared inbox, train once and answer everywhere
• White-label the whole experience so it reads as your brand, not ours

Every message, tag, and handoff stays in one place, on the channel your customers already trust. See more on the WhatsApp channel page, or book a demo and we'll walk through connecting your first number with you.