Connect WhatsApp

WhatsApp uses the WhatsApp Business Platform, so setup involves Meta as well as Kognit. Budget about twenty minutes.

Before you start

You need:

• A Meta Business account with a verified business
• A WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) with a phone number that is not registered to the consumer WhatsApp app
• Admin access to that Business account

If the number is currently on the normal WhatsApp app, delete that account first — a number cannot be on both.

Connect

1. Open Connections and find the WhatsApp card.
2. Enter your Phone Number ID, Business Account ID, and a permanent access token from Meta.
3. Save. Kognit validates the credentials immediately and tells you if any are wrong.

Use a permanent system-user token, not a temporary developer token — temporary tokens expire in 24 hours and your channel goes quiet without warning.

Message templates and the 24-hour window

Meta, not Kognit, enforces these rules:

• A customer messaging you opens a 24-hour service window. Inside it you can reply freely.
• Outside the window you may only send a pre-approved template message.

Templates are created and approved in Meta's Business Manager. Approval usually takes minutes but can take a day.

This is why WhatsApp tickets can look "stuck" — an agent writing a free-form reply after the window closes will be rejected by Meta. Watch the window indicator on the ticket.

What arrives as a ticket

Text, images, documents, audio, location, and interactive replies all arrive. Non-text messages are summarised in the ticket body and the file attached, so an agent scanning the queue can tell what a message contains without opening it.

AI on WhatsApp

Autopilot treats WhatsApp exactly like every other channel: same intent classification, same confidence threshold, same escalation guardrails. Replies are shorter by default, matching the medium.

Common problems