AI Agent and Copilot: a WhatsApp chatbot in your voice

How it works

• AI Agent on: it sends a reply like this straight away, to everyone who messages, except people you exclude and VIPs.
• AI Agent off, an excluded person, or a VIP: the same reply waits in Copilot for you to check, change and send. Your customer only ever sees what you send.
• Either way, it follows your bot instructions, and it hands anything you've listed under HAND TO A PERSON to you instead of answering it.

Before you start

• Your plan. The AI Agent and Copilot come with the Plus plan and up, and Standard replies are included.
• The 24-hour window. WhatsApp lets you send a normal typed reply only within 24 hours of the person's last message. The agent never replies after that, and each Copilot draft shows how long is left. After that, you can only message them with a template: a message WhatsApp has approved in advance, which you set up under Templates.
• What it answers. Text messages and photos from people who haven't opted out. Voice notes, videos and documents on their own don't get a reply. Opt-out words like STOP are handled for you, not answered.

Step by step

1. Give it instructions

Go to AI Agent and press Bot instructions. Every reply, from the agent or Copilot, follows what you write here, so it's the most important step. Three parts work best:

• VOICE: how you write. Warm or formal, how you greet people, how long your replies are, whether you use emoji.
• FACTS: what's true about your business that customers ask about. Prices, opening hours, delivery areas, links. It only states facts that are here, so put the important ones in.
• HAND TO A PERSON: topics it should leave to you, like refunds, complaints or anything about money owed. For these it says someone will come back to them, and leaves the answer to you.

For example:

VOICE
Warm and short, one or two lines. Use their first name. At most one emoji.

FACTS
Birthday cakes from R350 for a 20cm sponge. Order 3 days ahead.
Open 8am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday. Delivery in Cape Town only.
Order online: https://example.co.za/order

HAND TO A PERSON
Refunds, complaints, and wedding or corporate orders.

Press Save. You can change the instructions any time, and the next reply uses the new version.

Already been answering customers on WhatsApp? Press Fill this in from my conversations instead. Sonar reads the last 100 replies your team typed, what each one answered, and what it has learned so far, then writes instructions in the same three parts. The suggestion waits until you choose Use these, Edit first or Discard. Check the FACTS before you use it: it can only repeat what your replies said, and prices go out of date. It needs at least 10 of your own replies, it's free, and you can run it three times a day.

2. Train it with Copilot

While the agent is off, every reply waits in Copilot, under the switch. For each one:

• Send it as it is, or change the words first and then Send.
• Rewrite it with one tap: Shorter, Friendlier or More formal. Or press Tell it what to change and type something like "mention we deliver on Saturdays". A new version replaces it within a minute or two.
• Open chat shows the whole conversation if you need more context.
• Skip it if no reply is needed. If you skip one by mistake, press Undo, or bring it back from Skipped at the bottom of the page.

Every change you make, and every rewrite you ask for, is kept as a note the agent learns from. You can read them under Bot instructions → What it has learned from your changes. The thumbs up and down are optional and only record how good a draft was. For something every reply should know, like a new price, put it in your instructions rather than correcting reply after reply.

A few days of checking Copilot's drafts is the best way to see whether the agent is ready. When you're sending most of them without changes, it is.

3. Switch the AI Agent on

At the top of AI Agent, press Turn on. From then on it replies to everyone who messages, straight away, except people you exclude and VIPs. Press Turn off at any time and every reply goes back to waiting in Copilot.

4. Exclude people, or mark them as VIPs

Open someone's chat in the Inbox:

• Exclude from AI Agent: the agent stops replying to them, and Copilot drafts their replies for you instead, on your account's normal reply quality. Good for regulars you like to answer yourself.
• Mark as VIP: for your most important people. The agent never replies to them, and Copilot drafts their replies on Extreme, our strongest model, for you to check and send. Extreme is roughly R0.10 to R0.75 a reply (about R0.35 on average), from your account balance.

Good to know

Reply quality

At the top of the AI Agent page, Reply quality sets which model writes your replies. Standard (Claude Haiku) is included with your plan. Advanced (Claude Sonnet) follows your voice more closely and handles trickier questions better, for roughly R0.05 to R0.30 a reply (about R0.15 on average). VIP chats always use Extreme (Claude Opus). Try Standard first, and switch whenever you like.

Photos

When someone sends a photo, with or without a message, Sonar reads it and gives the AI a short description, including any text that matters: an amount, a reference or order number, a date or a product name. The reply answers with that in mind. In Copilot the photo shows in their messages as [Photo: what it shows], so you can see what the AI understood.

A reply to a photo can take a little longer while the photo downloads, usually under two minutes. Reading photos costs nothing extra.

The AI reads what's in the photo, but it can't check it against your records. A screenshot of a payment isn't proof the money arrived, so it won't confirm a payment. If people often send proof of payment, put "confirming payments" under HAND TO A PERSON and check those yourself.

Different products, branches or developments

If you sell more than one thing on the same number, keep your bot instructions for what's true for everyone, like your voice and opening hours. Then, under Instructions by tag in Bot instructions, add a set for each group: pick the contact tag (for example "Riverside"), and write the facts for that group only.

People with that tag get your general instructions plus that group's, and nobody else ever sees them, so one development's prices never end up in another's replies. Someone with two of these tags gets a suggestion in Copilot instead of an automatic reply, so you can answer them yourself.

People don't need the tag beforehand. Under Contacts → Tag people from what they reply, add the tag and the words to look for, like "Riverside". When someone's message contains one, they're tagged straight away and that very reply uses Riverside's instructions. Tick Let the AI decide and the agent also tags people who say it in other words, like a typo or "the one by the river". It works for anything people tell you, such as a budget ("Budget R2M") or what they're after, and the tags stay on the contact for your segments.

If each product or development has its own WhatsApp number, skip the words: under WhatsApp numbers, give the number a tag ("Tag everyone who messages this number"). Everyone who messages it gets that tag, including people who already have, so that number's instructions apply from the first reply.

Keep it learning

Every few weeks, press Fill this in from my conversations again: it folds what it has learned into your instructions and clears those notes, so nothing gets lost.

Try it and teach it before you switch it on

On the AI Agent page, press Try it. You get a chat where you play the customer and the bot answers exactly as it would on WhatsApp, using your instructions, what it has learned and your corrections. Nothing is sent and no contact is created. Standard replies are free here.

1. Write your instructions, including one fact you can check, like your opening hours.
2. In Try it, type what a customer would: "What time do you close on Saturday?" Check the reply uses your hours and your voice.
3. Ask about something under HAND TO A PERSON, like a refund. It should say someone will come back to you, not answer it.
4. If you use Instructions by tag, pick a group under Reply as if I'm tagged and check it only uses that group's facts.
5. Happy? Turn the agent on, message your number from your phone, and check the reply arrives without you pressing anything.

Teach it

Not happy with an answer? Tick Teach it and tell the bot what to change, in your own words: "be less formal", "we deliver on Saturdays now too", "never promise a delivery date". It replies with one line on what it understood, and a suggested update to your instructions appears under Bot instructions. Press Use these, Edit first or Discard. Nothing changes until you accept it. Then try the chat again and see the difference.

Photos can't be tested here yet. To check those, send one to your number from your phone and look at the draft in Copilot.

What it costs

The AI Agent and Copilot come with the Plus plan and up.

Advanced and Extreme replies are charged from your account balance, whether you send them or not. The cost depends on how long the conversation is. Each one that's sent also uses one of your plan's included messages. Filling in your instructions from your conversations is free. The replies you send are normal WhatsApp replies: Meta gives each number 1,000 free replies a month. See WhatsApp pricing in South Africa for the full breakdown.

More guides

• WhatsApp pricing in South Africa
• POPIA and WhatsApp marketing
• Event invites with one-tap RSVPs
• Use Sonar with the WhatsApp Business app
• Import your contacts
• Order and booking updates from your other systems
• Connect a client's WhatsApp number
• WhatsApp API providers in South Africa, compared
• Switching to Sonar
• WhatsApp RSVPs for events
• Competitions and prize draws

Need a hand?

Email support@whats-hub.co.za and we'll help you write your first instructions.