How to answer WhatsApp messages automatically with AI
Customers message your business on WhatsApp at all hours, and every unanswered message is a sale or booking that might go elsewhere. An AI agent can read those messages and reply for you, on the number your customers already have. Here is how it works, what it can and cannot do, and how to keep the account safe.
What an AI agent does on WhatsApp
An AI agent is an assistant such as Claude, ChatGPT or Grok that has been given access to your WhatsApp chats. When a customer writes, the agent reads the message, works out what they need and replies in the same chat. It can answer questions about prices, opening hours, stock and delivery, take a booking or an order, and pass anything it should not handle to you.
- Reply to every new message, day or night, in the language the customer writes in.
- Send photos, menus, price lists or PDFs in the chat.
- Book, move or confirm appointments using the booking system you already use.
- Hand a chat to a person on your team, and stay out of it afterwards.
You keep your number
Spaces connects the WhatsApp account you already use. You scan a QR code with the phone that has the number, the same way you would link WhatsApp to a computer. The number keeps working on your phone, customers keep messaging the number they know, and there are no message templates to write or approvals to wait for.
This is different from the WhatsApp Business Platform, which is built for large companies sending approved template messages to big lists. If you mainly answer people who message you, connecting your own number is the simpler route. Read the box above on WhatsApp's rules before you start.
Set it up in four steps
- Start a trial and connect WhatsApp by scanning the QR code.
- Give your AI agent the facts it needs: prices, hours, policies, and what to pass to you.
- Connect the agent to Spaces with one link. Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Cursor and others are supported.
- Wait a day, then let it answer. Spaces holds back new chats for 24 hours after connecting, as WhatsApp guidance recommends.
The limits that keep the account safe
WhatsApp watches for accounts that behave like bulk senders, especially many new chats that get no reply. Spaces keeps every account inside limits set from published guidance for WhatsApp:
- At least 15 seconds between messages.
- Up to 200 messages a day per account.
- At most 10 new chats a day with people who have not written to you, fewer while a new account warms up over four weeks.
- Replies to customers who message you are not held back by the warm-up.
Spaces also refuses the same cold message sent to many people, and stops messaging anyone who says stop.
Who you message
Pricing
FAQ
Can I use a normal WhatsApp account or WhatsApp Business?
Either. Spaces connects the account you already have by QR code.
Will customers know they are talking to an AI?
That is up to you and the rules where you operate. Many businesses say so in the agent's first reply, and the agent can always pass the chat to a person.
What happens to messages the AI should not answer?
You decide what it passes on, such as complaints, refunds or anything personal. Those come to you, and the agent stays out of the chat once a person takes over.