Short answer: You can add AI to Live Inbox in about 10 minutes from your TelyChat dashboard. The AI agent trains on your knowledge base, answers WhatsApp, Instagram, and web-chat messages instantly, and hands off to your human team with full context.
TelyChat Live Inbox is the AI-ready alternative to Intercom and Zendesk — built for self-hosting and data control. Without the AI layer switched on, every WhatsApp message lands in a human queue, and your team replies to the same five questions all day.
This tutorial walks through the exact steps to turn your Live Inbox into a self-hosted AI helpdesk with a trained AI agent — no code required.
What You'll Need Before You Start
- A TelyChat account with Live Inbox (hosted by us or self-hosted on your own server)
- A TelyChat account (free to start)
- Your Live Inbox account ID and an access token (Settings → Account → Access Token)
Step 1: Create Your TelyChat Account
Sign up at telychat.com and open the dashboard. The setup wizard takes less than a minute, and no credit card is required to begin.
Step 2: Connect Your Live Inbox
In TelyChat, open the integrations page and select Live Inbox. Paste in your workspace URL, account ID, and access token. TelyChat connects securely and reads your configured inboxes automatically.
"I self-host TelyChat for compliance reasons. Switching on the AI took minutes — our data stays on our infrastructure, and the AI finally does the repetitive answering."
Step 3: Choose Which Inboxes Get AI
Select the inboxes the AI should watch: WhatsApp, email, Instagram, or your website widget. You can enable AI per-inbox, so a private internal channel stays human-only.
Step 4: Train the AI on Your Knowledge Base
Upload your FAQs, pricing page, shipping policy, or past chat logs. The AI uses RAG memory — it retrieves facts from your documents before answering, so replies reflect your actual business instead of generic chatbot nonsense.
Step 5: Set the Automation Rules
Decide how the agent behaves:
- Auto-reply: AI answers directly when confident.
- Draft mode: AI drafts replies your team approves with one click.
- Confidence threshold: AI only answers above a certainty score; everything else routes to humans.
Step 6: Test a Real Conversation
Send a WhatsApp or website-widget message to your business number. Within seconds the AI should reply using your trained knowledge base. Ask it a question it doesn't know — it should stay quiet and route the chat to your team, with the full conversation context preserved in Live Inbox.
What TelyChat Adds to Live Inbox
- 24/7 instant replies — no more 4-hour first response times
- Lead capture — the agent collects name, email, and budget before handoff
- Human handoff with context — your agents see the full AI conversation in Live Inbox
- WhatsApp-native — direct WhatsApp Business API connection
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Live Inbox have AI built in?
Live Inbox ships with useful automation (rules, canned responses, macros) but no true AI agent. To answer messages conversationally with your own knowledge base, you connect an AI layer like TelyChat.
Is TelyChat compatible with self-hosted Live Inbox?
Yes. TelyChat connects to self-hosted Live Inbox instances over a secure API connection, so you keep full control of your data — a true self-hosted AI helpdesk stack.
How long does Live Inbox AI setup take?
Typically 10 minutes: create the account, connect the workspace, select inboxes, train on documents, and test. No code or DevOps work is needed.
Can the AI handle WhatsApp messages in Live Inbox?
Yes. If your Live Inbox has a WhatsApp channel, TelyChat's agent replies there automatically and hands off to humans when needed.
Do I need to write prompts or scripts?
No. TelyChat trains on your uploaded knowledge base and uses configurable reply rules. Prompt engineering is handled internally — you manage plain-language settings.