Setting up a WhatsApp AI agent: what you get and what you prepare

Setting up a WhatsApp AI agent with WeAutomate is free on Starter and Business and usually takes a few days, or a single day for a simple setup. The team learns your business, builds and trains the agent, connects WhatsApp and Google Calendar, and tests everything. Your part is the information: prices, services, common questions, booking rules and who takes over.

What happens during setup?

Setup is free on the Starter and Business plans. The steps run in this order.

1. A demo on WhatsApp. You watch the agent answer the kind of questions your customers send.
2. A setup call. The team asks how you sell: what you offer, what it costs, what customers ask again and again, and how you like to sound.
3. Build and training. The agent learns your prices, services, FAQs, documents and website.
4. Connections. Your WhatsApp number goes on, plus Google Calendar if the agent will take bookings.
5. Testing. Before any customer sees it, the agent is tried on real questions from your business.
6. Go live. Most businesses are live within a few days. A simple setup can be live on the day.
7. Ongoing care. The team hosts and monitors the agent, and tunes it every month as your prices and offers change.

At no point do you configure software. You supply the facts and read the first conversations.

What should you have ready?

The team handles the technical side. What you bring is knowledge of your business, and the first week of replies will only be as sharp as that knowledge.

• The WhatsApp number customers already message, in most cases. Ask on the demo call how it will be connected. We explain the options in WhatsApp Business app or the API.
• An up-to-date price list. The prices you actually charge, not rough starting figures.
• Your services or products, what each one includes and how long it takes.
• The ten questions you get most, and how you answer them: where you are, when you open, where you deliver, parking, what to bring.
• Documents and links. Menus, brochures, fee structures and your website if you have one.
• Your tone. Warm or formal, emoji or none, and which of English, Swahili and Sheng you want it to use.
• Booking rules, if it will book: hours, appointment lengths, notice and what it must leave to you. How booking works goes through them in detail.
• Google Calendar access, only if the agent will take bookings.
• Your Paybill or Till, plus what customers should send after paying.
• Who takes over. The person for complaints, custom quotes, payments and anything unusual, and how they want to be alerted.
• Photos, videos and price sheets you want the agent to send in the chat.

A useful test: if you would wince hearing a new member of staff say it to a customer, do not hand it to the agent.

What will the agent not do?

So you know exactly what you are buying:

• It will not take phone calls. It works in chat and does not make or answer voice calls. It does understand voice notes, and replies in writing.
• It will not confirm M-Pesa payments. There is no native M-Pesa integration. It shares your Paybill or Till and hands the chat to your team to confirm.
• It will not message strangers. No cold messaging. Broadcasts, on the Business and Enterprise plans, go only to people who already know your business.
• It will not guess. When a question falls outside what it was trained on, it tells the customer a member of the team will follow up and alerts you.
• It will not replace your team. It clears the repeated questions so your people can handle the ones that need judgement.
• It will not rescue an offer customers do not want. A quick answer about the wrong product at the wrong price is still a no.

Which plan do you need?

Starter and Business run month to month with no long contract. Enterprise terms are agreed with you. Meta’s WhatsApp message fees are billed by Meta where they apply. If your number runs on the WhatsApp Business Platform, Meta’s developer documentation says service replies are charged per message from 1 October 2026, so read what the October change means. Full plan details are on the pricing page.

What happens after it goes live?

The first weeks matter most. Spend a few minutes a day reading conversations in your dashboard. Where the agent answered differently from how you would, tell the team and they adjust it.

You can step into any chat whenever you like. Once you reply, the agent stands back for that customer until you hand the chat back. It can also alert you when a lead looks valuable or a customer asks for a person.

After that, keep the team posted on new prices, new services, holiday hours and promotions. Monthly tuning is included, but the team can only change what they have been told.

Who should wait before setting one up?

• Businesses whose enquiries come by phone. The agent does not answer calls.
• Businesses with no settled prices. If every job is quoted from scratch, the agent can qualify the customer and collect the details, but it cannot give the quote. That still saves time, but know what to expect.
• Owners who will never look at the chats. Someone should check the agent’s work, at least in the first weeks.

Where WeAutomate fits

WeAutomate is a done-for-you service run by a team in Kenya. You bring the knowledge of your business. The team does the building, training, connecting, testing, hosting and monthly tuning. Setup is free on Starter and Business, and most businesses are live within days. See what the agent does on the features page, or check common questions on the FAQ page.

Book a free demo