AI agent for WhatsApp that answers customers like a person
An AI agent can answer WhatsApp customers 24/7 in your tone, from your real prices, and hand hard chats to you. How to set it up and what it can't do.
An AI agent for WhatsApp reads each customer message, checks your price list, policies and the customer's history, and replies in your tone within a minute, at 2 PM or 2 AM. It sounds like a person when you give it real business facts, a few rules about style, and a clear point where it hands the chat to you. In KutrimBots the agent connects to your business number through Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API, keeps notes and a status on every conversation, opens tickets for complaints, and sends booking reminders as approved templates when the 24-hour window has closed.
This guide covers the reply side: tone, knowledge, handover and the 24-hour rule.
Why do WhatsApp customers go unanswered after 7 PM?
Because the messages keep coming after the shop closes, and one person can't answer 100 chats a day and sleep. In India alone WhatsApp has more than 500 million users, its largest market (TechCrunch, June 2026), so for many businesses it is the main sales counter. Expectations have moved too: in Zendesk's CX Trends 2026 research, 74% of consumers expect customer service to be available 24/7, and 88% expect faster responses than a year ago.
A typical day for a small business owner with 100+ chats looks like this:
- Morning: 30 overnight messages, half of them "price?" and "available?".
- Afternoon: replies go out in batches between other work, two or three hours late.
- Night: the phone is on silent, and the warmest leads, the ones messaging at 10 PM, wait until tomorrow.
Quick replies and away messages in the WhatsApp Business app help, but a fixed "We'll get back to you" doesn't answer the question. An agent can.
Can AI reply to WhatsApp messages without sounding like a robot?
Yes, if it answers the actual question in short, plain messages, uses the customer's language, and admits when it needs a person. Robotic replies usually come from three mistakes: long paragraphs, menu-style options ("Press 1 for prices"), and vague promises with no facts.
| Robotic reply | Reply that sounds like your shop |
|---|---|
| "Thank you for contacting us. Your query is important to us. Please choose an option." | "Hi Priya! Yes, the blue kurta is in stock in M and L. It's ₹1,299, and delivery to Pune takes 3–4 days." |
| "Kindly share your requirement in detail." | "Is this for daily wear or an event? I can suggest 2–3 options." |
| "Our team will revert shortly." | "Refunds are something the owner approves, so I've passed it on. You'll hear back by tomorrow 11 AM." |
| A 9-line message with every policy | Two short lines, then a question |
Style rules worth writing into the agent's instructions
- Mirror the customer's language. If they write in Hinglish ("bhaiya, size L hai kya?"), reply in Hinglish; if they write in English, reply in English.
- One answer, one question. Answer what they asked, then ask the one thing you need to move forward (size, date, pincode).
- Short messages. Two or three lines on a phone screen, no walls of text.
- Real numbers only. Prices, stock and delivery times come from your notes, never from guessing.
- Say who it is. "I'm the shop's AI assistant" in the first reply is honest, and customers mind it far less than slow answers.
- Never promise money. Refunds, discounts beyond your rules and credits go to you.
Agents follow instructions like these much better than old keyword chatbots, because they read the whole conversation rather than matching one word. Our explainer on AI agents vs chatbots covers the difference in detail.
What does the AI agent need to know about your business?
It needs the same facts a new shop assistant would learn in week one, written down once. In KutrimBots these go into Super Brain, the team's shared memory: every agent looks things up there before replying, in any language and even with typos, and when a value changes (a new price, a new delivery time) the newest one wins and the old one is kept as history. See how Super Brain works as shared memory for agents.
| What to add | Example |
|---|---|
| Products and prices | "Cotton kurta ₹1,299; silk ₹2,499; stitching ₹350 extra" |
| Stock rules | "Ask before promising sizes XS and XXL" |
| Delivery | "Pune 3–4 days, rest of India 5–7 days, free above ₹999" |
| Payment | "UPI or card; cash on delivery only in Pune" |
| Policies | "Exchange within 7 days, no refunds on sale items" |
| Hours and address | "Shop open 11 AM–9 PM, closed Tuesday" |
| Top 20 questions | The questions you answer every day, with your usual answer |
| Never-say list | "Never quote a delivery date for custom orders" |
Start with the top 20 questions.
How do you set up an AI agent for WhatsApp business?
You hire an agent, teach it, connect your WhatsApp Business number through Meta's Cloud API, and test it on your own phone before customers see it. The steps in KutrimBots:
- Hire the agent. Create an agent with a Support or Inbox role and describe the job: "Answer customer questions on WhatsApp for our clothing shop, in the customer's language, using only facts from Super Brain." Agents with these roles get the Inbox Manager, CRM & Leads and Support Desk plugins automatically.
- Teach it. Add your prices, policies and top questions to Super Brain (table above).
- Connect WhatsApp. Click Connect on WhatsApp for that agent. It walks you through creating a WhatsApp Business app in Meta for Developers, then asks for four values on a secure card, never in chat: Phone number ID, Access token, App secret and Webhook verify token. The full Meta side, with costs, is a separate step-by-step job.
- Set the handover rules (next section): what the agent may decide, and what comes to you.
- Add bookings if you take appointments. The Bookings plugin lets customers book by chatting with the agent on WhatsApp and sends confirmations and reminders there.
- Test from your own number. Ask 10 real customer questions, including a rude one and a refund request, and correct the agent's notes where it was wrong.
- Go live and read the Inbox for a week. Every chat and every reply the agent sent shows up in the Inbox Manager, so you can check tone before you stop worrying about it.
New to agents in general? How to set up your first AI team explains roles and instructions.
When should the AI hand a WhatsApp chat to a person?
The agent should hand over anything involving money decisions, anger, legal risk or something it can't verify, and it should tell the customer what happens next instead of going quiet. A simple rule set:
| Situation | What the agent does |
|---|---|
| Price, stock, delivery, timings | Answers from Super Brain |
| Wants to book | Offers 3–5 real slots from Bookings and books it |
| Complaint, damaged item, bug | Opens a Support Desk ticket and gives the ticket number |
| Refund, discount, credit | Escalates to you; promises nothing |
| Angry customer or legal threat | Apologises once, escalates to you, sets the chat to waiting |
| Question it can't find an answer to | Says it will check, asks you in its chat |
In the Support Desk, tickets are numbered per desk (for example SHOP-1024) and carry an SLA clock for the first reply and for the resolution. Anything about money, legal or policy is escalated to you, you answer in Needs you, and the agent passes your answer to the customer on WhatsApp. If a call is better, the agent proposes a time and books it only after you approve it.
The agent also keeps the paperwork that makes a handover painless. In the Inbox Manager it sets each conversation to open, waiting or done and adds short notes: order number, promise made, preference. When you step in, the history and the notes are already there.
What is the 24-hour rule on WhatsApp, and how do follow-ups work?
Meta lets a business send free-form replies only within 24 hours of the customer's last message; after that, only pre-approved template messages can go out. Meta's documentation calls this the customer service window: it starts when the customer messages or calls, and resets with each new message.
What this means for your agent:
- Live chat is unaffected. While the customer keeps writing, the agent can reply as often as needed.
- Next-day nudges are limited. A free-form "Did you decide on the size?" can't go out 30 hours later. The agent keeps the next step as a note or CRM follow-up and picks it up when the customer writes again, or you call them.
- Booking messages already handle it. The Bookings plugin sends confirmations and reminders as Meta-approved templates, so a reminder the day before an appointment still arrives. The templates are created on your WhatsApp Business Account and Meta reviews them (Bookings → Settings shows the status).
What replies and reminders cost
Meta charges per delivered message. As of November 2026, Meta's India rate card effective October 1, 2026 lists ₹0.115 for a utility template (such as a booking reminder) and ₹0.115 for a service reply after each business number's 1,000 free service messages a month. Marketing templates cost ₹0.8631. Check the current card before you budget, and confirm any tax treatment with your CA.
Example scenario: a clothing shop in Pune with 120 chats a day
An example scenario, not a real customer, using November 2026 prices:
- Volume: 120 customer chats a day, about 3,600 a month, averaging 2 agent replies each: 7,200 service messages.
- Night shift: 35 of the daily chats arrive between 9 PM and 9 AM. The agent answers them in under a minute instead of the next morning.
- Handovers: about 6 a day go to the owner: 3 refund or exchange requests, 2 custom-stitching quotes, 1 complaint opened as a Support Desk ticket.
- Reminders: 150 stitching-fitting bookings a month, each with a confirmation and a reminder template: 300 utility messages.
Meta's message fees: 7,200 service replies minus 1,000 free = 6,200 × ₹0.115 = ₹713. Plus 300 utility templates × ₹0.115 = ₹34.50. About ₹748 a month.
KutrimBots: the Solo plan is $20 a month for up to 5 agents with $10 of AI usage included. At roughly $0.003 per reply on the included models, 7,200 replies use about $21.60, so this shop would add a one-time $10 top-up or two, or move to Team ($49 with $25 of usage). See KutrimBots pricing for the current plans.
Owner's time: from about 3 hours a day of typing to about 30 minutes reading the Inbox summary and answering 6 escalations.
What an AI agent can't do on WhatsApp
Be clear about the limits before you switch it on:
- It can't start chats freely. Outside the 24-hour window only Meta-approved templates go out; in KutrimBots those are the Bookings messages.
- It only knows what you taught it. If your stock changes daily and nobody updates it, the agent will be confidently out of date. Keep stock questions as "I'll check" until you have a reliable source.
- It won't replace you on judgement. Refunds, discounts and angry regulars still need you; the agent's job is to bring them to you quickly with context.
- The number has to be free. When you connect your own Meta app, Meta only registers a number that isn't already in use on WhatsApp, so many businesses give the agent a new number rather than deleting their app account.
- Group chats aren't the target. This setup is for one-to-one customer chats.
- It needs checking at the start. Read the first week of replies in the Inbox and correct its notes; quality comes from your corrections.
If safety worries you, our guide to whether AI agents are safe explains approvals and what agents can't do without you.
KutrimBots has a free 7-day trial on the Solo plan: add a card or UPI, nothing is charged today, and you can cancel in Plan & billing before it renews.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI reply to WhatsApp messages automatically?
Yes. Through Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API, an AI agent receives each customer message and replies within the 24-hour customer service window. Outside that window it can only send approved template messages.
Will customers know they're talking to an AI?
They should, and it rarely hurts. Have the agent say it's the business's AI assistant in its first reply and offer a person for anything it can't settle.
Can the AI agent reply in Hindi or Hinglish?
Yes. Tell the agent to reply in the customer's language, and it will mirror Hindi, Hinglish or English. Super Brain search also works across languages and spelling mistakes.
What happens when the AI can't answer a WhatsApp question?
It tells the customer it will check, marks the conversation as waiting, and asks you in its chat or in Needs you. Complaints become Support Desk tickets with a number and an SLA clock.
Does WhatsApp charge for AI replies?
Meta charges per delivered message, not for the AI itself. As of November 2026, each number gets 1,000 free service messages a month, then ₹0.115 per reply in India; the AI's own cost is part of your KutrimBots plan's usage.