How to get your WhatsApp account ready for an AI agent and connect it with StudioChat

An AI agent needs three things to handle conversations on WhatsApp: a WhatsApp Business account connected through the official route, a number it can use, and a clear definition of what it can do and when it hands off to a person. All three can be ready within a few days if you do them in the right order. This guide walks through that order.

What do I need before connecting an agent to WhatsApp?

Four things, worth having at hand before you start:

• A Meta Business portfolio under your company's name. It's the container where the WhatsApp Business account lives. If you don't have one yet, it takes minutes to create.
• A phone number that you'll dedicate to the agent, or the one you already use (see below).
• Administrator access to that Meta portfolio, because the connection is authorized from there.
• A person on the team who knows how conversations are handled today and can validate the agent's answers.

Which number do I use: the one I already have or a new one?

There are two paths and both work.

The number you already use. If you handle conversations today with the WhatsApp Business app, Meta lets you connect that same number to the API while you keep using the app, through a feature called coexistence. You keep replying from your phone as usual, and the agent and the team work on the same line. It requires app version 2.24.17 or higher, and some app features (calls, catalog, channels) don't carry over to the API. The details are in the post on moving from the app to the API.

A new number. You open a line just for the agent. It's simpler to set up and lets you separate customer service from lead generation. It has a communication cost: customers who already know you have to find out about the new number.

In both cases the number ends up in an official WhatsApp Business account, which is what lets an agent operate without the risk of being blocked.

How do you connect WhatsApp with an agent provider?

Through a signup flow that Meta calls Embedded Signup: the provider takes you to a Meta screen where you authorize the connection between your account and their platform. You don't write any code. Meta documents this path for authorized providers, and it's the one we use at StudioChat.

There are three things worth asking the provider before you authorize: that the WhatsApp Business account stays under your company's name, that the connection is the official API one, and who receives the invoice for Meta's messages.

How do you connect with StudioChat?

The WhatsApp connection is made with StudioChat Ops, StudioChat's WhatsApp platform. It brings the team inbox, the AI assistants and the connections to your systems into a single screen. In practice:

1. You authorize the WhatsApp Business account from Meta, through the official flow.
2. You can use your own number or more than one. With coexistence you keep using the usual WhatsApp on your phone while the team and the agent work on the same line.
3. The StudioChat team builds the agent on how your best talent already handles conversations: their tone, their rules and their cases. We don't charge for integrations or setup.
4. We connect the agent to the systems where the data customers ask about lives: orders, payments, scheduling. If the integration doesn't exist, we build it.
5. We define when the agent hands the conversation to a person. The team receives the full history to pick up where it left off.

If you already work with a customer service platform or a CRM, the agent connects there: there's no need to move the team to another tool.

What should you test before going live?

Four tests with real cases, before opening the number to the public:

• The ten most frequent questions, with the answers your best person would give.
• Three cases that use account data (an order, a payment, an appointment), to confirm the agent looks things up correctly.
• Two cases that must go to a person, and what that person receives.
• A follow-up outside the 24-hour window, using an approved template. If you don't have any approved, now is the time to request them.

How much does it cost and how long does it take?

With StudioChat Ops, access is immediate: getting you connected with the platform running is a matter of hours. The entry plan costs USD 49 per month and includes one WhatsApp line on the official connection, an AI agent connected to the model of your choice, 200 outbound AI conversations per month, unlimited users and contacts, Instagram and the other channels, the assistant that suggests replies, the agent that answers on its own, the knowledge base, reports, Flows, WhatsApp calls, bulk-send campaigns with approved templates, the API and the MCP server. Each extra conversation costs USD 0.020. Meta's messages are billed separately, using the payment method we set up.

Integrations and customizations depend on each case: depending on which systems need to be connected, between one and four weeks. And when systems need to be integrated or an agent has to be built around your company's rules, the managed plan is quoted according to the operation, with a prior analysis at no cost.

How is the AI model connected?

Through MCP. If you already use Claude, ChatGPT or another model with services connected to your tools, StudioChat Ops is one more connection: you can ask it about your conversations, request summaries, let it search the history and, with your approval, let it operate. The official WhatsApp connection, the apps and the calls are already built and update on their own when Meta changes something, so there's nothing of that to maintain.

Anything the platform doesn't include out of the box is connected through the API or automated with your own flows. And whatever you'd rather not touch, the StudioChat team does.

What about systems that don't have an API?

They're operated the way a person operates them. For old systems or spreadsheets, we use agents that operate the computer: they open the system, enter the data, read it. If the information for your operation lives in a spreadsheet today, you start with the spreadsheet. There's no need to wait for a system modernization to put an agent to work on it.

Which channels can be connected besides WhatsApp?

Instagram, Facebook, email, web, TikTok and Mercado Libre come ready, in the same inbox, and so do calls, both outbound and inbound. If you need one that isn't there yet, we build it. For an agent that serves prospects and customers, having every channel in one place avoids the most annoying part of scattered service: the same person writing on WhatsApp, Instagram and email, with each conversation living on its own.

What can't be connected?

A personal WhatsApp. There's no official way to do it today, and connections that hang off a regular WhatsApp are the ones that end with the number blocked. If what you want to connect is the WhatsApp of a person who handles customers, the right move is to migrate that number to a WhatsApp Business account, and from there to the API.

What controls does the team have over the agent?

Three worth turning on from day one:

• A spending limit. So message consumption doesn't bring surprises: when it's reached, the platform warns you before continuing.
• Rules for who sees and who writes. Each number or line has its own rule: who can see it, who can write from it and who receives its messages.
• Approval for sensitive actions. When the model operates on your data, you can define which actions require a person to approve them.

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Authorizing the connection from a personal Meta account. Doing it from an employee's account causes trouble the day that person leaves. Use a company administrator.
• Leaving the account under the provider's name. If you ever switch providers, you lose the channel.
• Opening the number to the public without testing with real cases.
• Not defining who reviews the conversations. The agent improves with weekly review. Without it, it stalls.

When does it make sense to add a second number?

When you want to separate audiences or teams. One number to capture prospects from ads and another to serve customers with an account lets you measure each part separately, use the free window from ads without mixing it with customer service, and set different rules for who sees each line. Each number also has its own allowance of 1,000 free service messages per month. In StudioChat Ops there can be more than one number in the same inbox, each with its own rule for who sees it, who can write from it and who receives its messages.

Who does what during the connection?

A simple split avoids delays. You authorize the account from Meta and give us access to the system where the information the agent has to look up lives. We connect WhatsApp, build the agent with your knowledge and develop whatever integrations are missing. Your team validates the answers with real cases and defines when the agent hands the conversation to a person. If each party knows what falls to them from day one, the connection doesn't stall waiting on a reply.

How do you go live?

Gradually. First a subset of conversations or a limited schedule, with daily review. When the answers match what your team would give, you expand. The tool below is a readiness check: mark what you've already sorted out.

Tool for this post

Is your account ready for an agent?

Mark what you've already sorted out.

I have a Meta Business portfolio under my company's name (+2)I have administrator access to that portfolio (+2)I decided which number to use (the current one or a new one) (+2)I know which app features I use today and which ones I depend on keeping (+1)I have the ten most frequent questions written down (+1)I know which systems the agent has to look up (+2)I defined when the conversation goes to a person (+1)I have at least one approved template for follow-ups (+1)

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Start with the account

Before talking about agents, it's worth sorting out the Meta portfolio, the access and the number. It's one or two days of work.

This object also has a page of its own, in case you want to send just that.