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WhatsApp chatbots

Build a WhatsApp chatbot in LogAI: start from six templates, a blank canvas or a plain-English description, choose how it starts (keyword, any message, after silence, template button, or your team), build it on a canvas or as an outline, test it in a free simulator, and publish versions to your WhatsApp Business number.

9 min read · Last updated 2026-10-13

Chatbots answer your WhatsApp Business number for you — greet customers, ask questions with tap-to-reply buttons, answer FAQs, look up an order, book a slot, and hand the chat to a teammate when it needs a person. Open Workflows → Chatbots to see every bot, its number, how it starts and how its conversations end. Bots run on the WhatsApp Business number you connected, and every reply lands in the same WhatsApp thread your team already uses.

Free by default, AI when you want it: Buttons, questions, look-ups and Smart answers cost nothing. Only AI steps use AI credits — 1 or 2 per AI answer — and the test simulator never charges.

Create a chatbot

1. Open New chatbot. Click New chatbot on Workflows → Chatbots (or run Create Chatbot from the command palette). Give it a Name and pick the number it Runs on — if you have one number it's preselected. No number yet? You can still build the bot and attach one later; you just can't test or publish until a number is attached.
2. Pick a starting point. Under Start from, choose a Template, the Blank canvas, or Describe it. Every bot is created as a Draft — nothing is sent to customers until you publish.
3. Set how it starts. Open Bot settings (top right) → Start and choose Starts when — see the table below.
4. Build the conversation. Add and connect steps on the Build tab — questions with buttons, messages, Smart answers, AI replies, look-ups and hand-offs. The chatbot steps guide covers every step.
5. Test it. Chat with the bot on the Test tab's phone simulator — free, and nothing reaches WhatsApp.
6. Publish. Click Publish. The Ready to publish? checklist lists anything you Must fix, shows What goes live, and flags anything Worth a look. Publishing takes a snapshot: version 1 goes live, and later publishes replace it.

Templates

Each template card shows how many steps it has and whether it uses Smart answers or hands off to a person. Everything in a template can be changed afterwards.

Describe it — AI drafts the bot: Choose Describe it and write what the bot should do in plain words (15–2,000 characters) — “Greet customers, ask whether they want to order, track an order or talk to us, and collect their name and city for new orders.” AI drafts a bot of up to 25 named steps plus up to 15 Smart answers for 5 credits, refunded if the draft fails. It opens as a draft for you to review, test and publish.

Choose how it starts

A bot starts only when the customer has no conversation already running on that number — one bot talks to a customer at a time. Several bots can share a number: when more than one could start, the lowest Priority number wins (default 100). The publish checklist warns when two live bots on the same number share keywords. Any live bot can also be started by hand from a thread — see hand-off and conversations.

The builder: Canvas or Outline

• Canvas — steps as cards that show what each one says, with labelled, coloured branches (one per button, plus “Typed something else”, “No reply” and so on). Answers that loop back up are drawn on a side lane. Two-finger scroll pans; pinch or ⌘/Ctrl + scroll zooms.
• Outline — the same bot as a numbered list: what each step says, its options, and where every answer goes (↓ reads on, ↩ goes back to an earlier step). Tap a step to open it; tap “→ 4” to jump to step 4. Steps nothing reaches are listed apart so you can delete them, and a step that leads nowhere offers Add a step after. Phones open on the Outline, and your choice is remembered on each device.
• Add step opens the step library as a floating panel; it closes after you pick or press Esc.
• Step panel — set the step up, then check On the customer's phone (a live preview that warns about WhatsApp limits such as 20-character button titles) and Where it goes next (open, insert after, or unlink each branch). Branches you don't connect follow Otherwise. Click Save step to keep your changes.
• Undo / Redo sit at the start of the header on the Build tab — ⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y on Windows). The tooltip names the change, and the last 30 step and connection edits are kept even across reloads. Settings changes aren't part of undo.

Bot settings

Bot settings holds everything about how the bot behaves around the conversation. Settings apply as soon as you save them — even on a live bot — while step changes wait for your next publish.

Test in the simulator

The Test tab opens a phone that starts the bot as a test customer. Tap buttons and list rows or type, use Start over to begin again, and switch 24h window open off to see what happens when WhatsApp's 24-hour window has closed. Beside the phone, What the bot knows shows captured answers and variables, and Step by step traces each decision.

• Nothing is sent to WhatsApp and no credits are charged — AI steps say “free in the simulator”.
• Notifications are logged, lead fields aren't written, and bookings are simulated (“Booked (simulated — nothing was booked)”).
• Look-ups read your real orders and booking slots, so you can test with genuine order numbers.
• Test chats don't appear in Conversations or Analytics and don't count toward your monthly conversations.

Publish, pause and versions

The publish checklist blocks things that would break on WhatsApp — no number attached, keyword start with no keywords, a step with nothing after it, an empty message, an unapproved template, a button title over 20 characters (24 for list rows), an option that leads nowhere, or a hand-off with nobody to assign. Warnings cover steps nothing can reach, more than 3 buttons (sent as a list), a variable used before it's captured, and keyword overlaps with other live bots. Each item has Go to. The bot menu also has Versions (restore any of the last six into the draft), Duplicate, Pause/Resume and Archive.

Plans and permissions

• Plans include up to 10 live chatbots, 10,000 chatbot conversations a month and 500 Smart answers by default — drafts and test chats don't count. See plans & billing.
• Chatbots use the WhatsApp permission: View to see bots and conversations, Create to add bots and answers, Update to edit and test, Manage to publish, pause, take over or start a bot from a thread, Delete to archive. Editing steps also needs the Workflow permission. See roles & permissions.

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