WhatsApp and ChatGPT integration ― autoresponder for WhatsApp conversations

TimelinesAI allows you to set up a ChatGPT-powered auto-responder in your WhatsApp account without code or external automation tools!

You can tailor ChatGPT response to your needs by providing instructions in plain language in Prompt field. Use the default prompt as a basis and modify it as needed. You can supply some background information on your business and instruct ChatGPT to respond differently depending on whether it is the first message in the WhatsApp conversation.

You can select, whether to activate auto-responder in specific WhatsApp chats or to enable it in all new chats that are created when you receive a message from a new contact or start a new conversation.

For each incoming message received in a chat, where ChatGPT auto-responder is enabled, TimelinesAI will automatically respond with a text, generated by ChatGPT.

How does it work?

We use ChatGPT text-davinci-003 model with up to 1000 tokens per single request (you can read more about tokens and pricing here). Up to 16 most recent WhatsApp messages in the conversation will be supplied together with the prompt, to allow for highly relevant and context-aware replies.

Most human languages are supported, however, the quality of response depends on the language and cannot be guaranteed. In addition, languages other than English may use significantly more tokens.

ChatGPT auto-response is activated with a delay of 5 seconds after the message was received, to allow for the human operator to respond.

ChatGPT infrastructure can occasionally experience load or be unavailable. If we are unable to obtain a ChatGPT response successfully, up to 3 more attempts will be made. Please allow additional time (usually up to 10 seconds) in addition to the initial delay, until an automatic response is sent to the user.

If you run into any technical problems or are interested in custom settings, please contact us at support@timelines.ai).

Setup

You can setup a ChatGPT-powered WhatsApp auto-responder in a few simple steps:

1. Register or login at OpenAI’s site: https://openai.com/api/

2. Navigate to API Keys section and create a new API Key. Copy the key to clipboard.

3. Navigate to TimelinesAI ChatGPT settings page and enter the API Key.
* ChatGPT settings menu item is available in the left sidebar in TimelinesAI. If you can’t see this option, contact support to request access to this feature for your workspace.

4. Edit the Prompt to supply appropriate instructions to ChatGPT engine.

5. Turn on “Enable auto-response by default in new chats” option, if you want ChatGPT auto-responder to be activated by default in all new conversations (started by you or by the other party).

6. Turn on “Activate ChatGPT” to enable auto-response in all chats, where ChatGPT auto-responder is activated. Turning off this option will stop the auto-responder in all chats until this option is enabled again.

7. You can see all chats, where ChatGPT auto-response is activated from Chats view:

8. Navigate to the relevant chat and click on “Enable ChatGPT autoresponse” to activate it in this chat:

All messages generated by ChatGPT will be labeled accordingly, as seen above

Composing a prompt

ChatGPT receives instructions in plain human language. English is recommended for efficiency reasons.

Bear in mind, that in order to provide a conversation context, we concatenate up to 16 most recent messages in a conversation in the following format:

Remote: Hello! I am interested in custom software development, can you help me?
Me: Yes, we can help with custom software development. What kind of services are you looking for?
Remote: I would like to develop a mobile application

We recommend clear and specific instructions, that explicitly mention me and the “Remote” person. Consider a generic version of the prompt, for example:

Continue conversation in the same language, on my behalf.
If this is first message, just greet politely the Remote person.
Otherwise provide response based on the context of previous conversation.
Use short answers.

Feel free to provide additional context / instructions in the same way you would instruct a call center agent:

Continue conversation in the same language, on my behalf.
We are an insurance agency. If this is first message in conversation, ask the Remote person about her needs and contact details (full name, email). Otherwise provide response based on the context of previous conversation. Use short phrases.