Connecting the WhatsApp bridge to AI: your own number as a working channel
The WhatsApp bridge turns an existing WhatsApp number into a working channel for your assistant. You scan a QR code once in the dashboard, after which messages arrive at the assistant and the answer goes back into the same conversation. It is two way traffic: you ask a question the way you would message a colleague, and the assistant answers with your organisation's knowledge.
What the channel does in practice
Pairing with a QR code
The dashboard holds a pairing page with a QR code. Scanning it with the phone connects the number to the assistant. The code refreshes continuously, so an old screenshot gives nobody access.
Messages back and forth
An incoming message goes to the assistant and the answer comes back in the same conversation. No separate app, no extra login and no translation step for the user.
Visibly at work
While the assistant is busy the typing indicator appears. It looks like a detail, but it is the difference between a conversation and the feeling that your message vanished into a void.
Looking back through the thread
The assistant can search what was said earlier in the conversation. A follow-up question therefore does not have to be explained again, even when the earlier message is from last week.
Deciding how it behaves
Whether group chats are ignored, whether calls are rejected, whether messages are marked as read: those are your choices. Everything starts out set conservatively.
Where this channel earns its place
Field service
- Situation
- An engineer is at a customer site and wants to know the warranty period on a part.
- What the agent does
- He messages the question to the familiar number and the assistant looks it up in the company documentation.
- Result
- An answer while he is still standing at the machine, instead of a phone call to the office.
Sales
- Situation
- Between two appointments an account manager wants to know what was discussed with a customer before.
- What the agent does
- He asks in the chat and the assistant pulls it from the connected sources.
- Result
- Walking in prepared, without opening a laptop in a car park first.
Healthcare
- Situation
- A community worker has a question about a procedure and no workstation to hand.
- What the agent does
- The question goes through the chat to the assistant, which takes the answer from the handbook and names the source.
- Result
- Fewer calls to the on-call colleague and an answer that demonstrably comes from the organisation's own policy.
Facilities
- Situation
- Reports about a building simply arrive through the app everybody already uses.
- What the agent does
- The assistant takes the report, asks the questions that are missing and records the result where it belongs.
- Result
- Reports that arrive complete, without anyone having to open a form.
From QR code to conversation
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1
Switching the channel on
The bridge is enabled per organisation. With it off the pairing page does not exist. That is a deliberate choice your administrator makes, not a setting that drifts into being on.
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2
Pairing the number
On the pairing page you scan the QR code with the phone of the number you want to use. After that the connection is live and the same screen shows whether it is active.
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3
Choosing which assistant answers
You decide which assistant sits behind the channel, and therefore which knowledge and which rights apply. A channel for field service does not need to see the same sources as one for the board.
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4
Disconnecting whenever you want
From the same page you break the connection again. After that nothing comes in and nothing goes out. No connection lingers that you cannot see.
A chat channel with the same boundaries as the rest
A channel living on an employee's phone rightly raises questions about who reads along and what is kept. The same agreements apply here as everywhere else in the environment.
Where the data lives: Nederland of de EU
On only when you switch it on
The channel is off per organisation until somebody with the right permissions turns it on. There is no state in which it runs along without you having decided so.
The same rights as in the chat
The assistant behind the channel sees no more than the assistant in the web environment. What an employee may not view there does not surface through the phone either.
Traceable in the environment
Conversations through the channel sit in the environment like conversations from the chat. An administrator can therefore see what was asked and answered.
Answers from our own server
The model composing the answers runs on our own server in the Netherlands. The content of the conversations does not travel to an American model vendor and is not used for training.
Questions about the WhatsApp channel
What is the difference with the WhatsApp Business connector?
The WhatsApp Business connector is about Meta's business channel: outbound messages to customers, with templates and the rules that come with them. The bridge turns an existing number into a two way working channel for employees, paired with a QR code. Many organisations use both, for different audiences.
Does IntraGPT work with WhatsApp?
Yes, in two ways. Through this channel employees chat with their assistant on a familiar number, and through the WhatsApp Business connector an organisation can send outbound messages to customers. Which of the two fits depends on who sits at the other end.
What happens when the phone is switched off?
Then the connection is temporarily inactive and the pairing page shows that. As soon as the phone is online again the channel carries on. For a channel that has to be available all day you therefore want a handset sitting on a charger, not the private phone of somebody about to go on holiday.
Can I connect WhatsApp to ChatGPT?
There is no built-in connection between WhatsApp and ChatGPT, and sending company information through a private chat to a public service is a bad idea. With IntraGPT the channel hangs off your own environment, with your sources, your rights and conversations you can find back in the environment.
Does the assistant read along in group chats?
Only if you want it to. Ignoring groups is a setting, and many organisations deliberately leave it on because a work number often sits in groups that have nothing to do with work.
Can I disconnect the channel again?
Yes, from the same page where you paired it. After disconnecting nothing comes in and nothing goes out. If you want to pair again later, you simply scan a fresh QR code.
What does a WhatsApp channel cost?
The channel belongs to the track we go through together. What drives the work is how many numbers you pair, which assistant sits behind it and which sources it may use. We make that concrete in a thirty minute conversation.
How long does setup take?
Pairing itself is a matter of scanning a QR code. The time goes into choosing which assistant sits behind it and which knowledge it may use, because that decides whether the answers are genuinely useful in practice.