A WhatsApp AI agent that works inside a workflow you control
Customers write on WhatsApp at every hour, and each message waits until you get to it. Most WhatsApp automation is either a menu of buttons or a model left to improvise. Here the agent answers from what you gave it, asks you before anything changes, and every request ends up written down where your team can see it.
The workflow
When a customer messages your business number on WhatsApp, the agent answers from your own information, gathers what the request needs and asks you before anything changes — and once the chat ends, the request is written as a row in your table and your team is told on Slack.
- Trigger
When someone messages you
A customer writes to your WhatsApp Business number, and the chat goes to the workflow you chose as that number's Customer workflow.
- Agent
Conversation
The agent answers from your instructions, skills and tables, and gathers the details you listed under Collect fields.
- Approval
Approvals
Anything it would book, change or cancel waits for your Approve or Decline — on WhatsApp, in the app, by email or on Slack.
- Then
Table
When the chat ends, the details it gathered are written as a row in your table.
- Then
Connector
A Slack message tells your team that a new request is in.
What it uses
WhatsApp number in Settings → Channels, Conversation, Collect fields, Workflows it can run, Approvals, Owner numbers, Tables, Skills, Slack Connector, Custom MCP
What the agent may answer, what it must never promise, and how it speaks to your customers
How is this different from a WhatsApp chatbot?
A chatbot either walks customers through a fixed menu or lets a model improvise, and an improvising model will promise an appointment that doesn't exist. Here the agent works inside a workflow you designed. It answers from your instructions, the skills you wrote and the tables you keep, and it can act only through what you gave it: the workflows listed under Workflows it can run, a Connector such as Google Calendar, or your own system through Custom MCP.
It reads more than text, too. Photos and PDFs a customer sends arrive as files your workflow can use — a receipt, a filled-in form, a screenshot of the problem.
What stays in your hands?
Every booking, order or cancellation the agent wants to make. It asks first, and the request reaches you in the app and by email or on Slack — and, once your own number is under Owner numbers, on WhatsApp with Approve and Decline buttons. You choose who decides and how long a request waits. If nobody answers in time, it's declined and the customer is told; nothing is ever approved by default.
On a number that also runs in the WhatsApp Business app, three settings decide how much the bot takes on. Who the bot answers: everyone, only these numbers, or everyone except these numbers. Bot hours: always, or only the hours you set. Human takeover: once someone on your team replies from the Business app, the bot stays quiet in that chat. The bot never hands a chat over by itself; your team steps in. You can read every chat in the workflow's Run history, under Conversations.
What do you need to set it up?
A WhatsApp Business number, connected in Settings → Channels with Connect a WhatsApp number. We set it up with you on the onboarding call, and whether the number can keep running in the WhatsApp Business app as well is one of the things we check then. neonloops is in open beta: the app is live, the rate is published, there is no trial, and the first workspaces are onboarded one call at a time.
Then a workflow that starts When someone messages you, with a Conversation step: your instructions, what to collect, which workflows it may run and who approves. Anything the bot sends outside WhatsApp's 24-hour window — an approval request after hours, a reminder — needs a template Meta has approved.
What won't it do?
It doesn't hand a chat to a person on its own, and it doesn't understand voice notes. It talks to customers on WhatsApp only: no web chat widget, no Instagram, Messenger, Telegram or SMS, and no public API. Files never go into the chat; a customer gets a Secure download link instead, opened with a one-time code. And there are caps on how many chats a workspace runs at once and how many replies one chat gets.
What does it cost to run?
neonloops bills for the time your work is actually working: the minutes the agent spends on a reply, and the steps that run after a chat. The hours a customer takes to answer cost nothing, and neither does a request waiting for your OK. A workspace adds a card and is priced per billable minute from the start, against a ceiling you set yourself — there's no trial. If the workspace has no card or reaches its ceiling, the bot tells customers it can't reply right now, and you're told why in the app and by email.
WhatsApp messages carry Meta's own fees. Meta bills its paid messages — templates such as reminders and approval requests, and some replies — to your business's own WhatsApp Business account, through a payment method you add in Meta Business Suite. Those charges are between you and Meta, never part of your neonloops bill.
How pricing works