Delegate from your phone
Send a two line request or a voice note between meetings, and the employee starts on it and reports back in the same chat.
WhatsApp is a planned messaging channel for talking with an AI employee from your phone. It is not connected yet: the card shows as coming soon and cannot be set up today. When it ships, it will carry the same employee memory, skills, and guardrails as web chat, Telegram, Slack, and the mailbox. Telegram and Slack are live now and give you the same access from a phone, so nothing you set up today has to be rebuilt when WhatsApp arrives.
Most of the people you work with are already on WhatsApp, which makes it the obvious place to reach an assistant when you are away from a desk. Sistava has WhatsApp on the roadmap as a full channel rather than a forwarding trick, and this page describes what that will mean once it lands. Right now it sits in Settings, then Technical, then Channels, in the Chat Apps group, carrying a Coming soon badge instead of a setup button. Nothing routes to it, so no WhatsApp message reaches an employee today.
The plan is simple from your side. You connect a WhatsApp Business number to your workspace, choose which employee answers it, and messages sent to that number arrive as work for that employee. Replies come back into the same WhatsApp conversation, so whoever is writing never has to open Sistava at all. That makes it useful both for you personally and for a number your customers already message.
What makes a new channel quick to add is that none of the thinking lives in the channel itself. Every message, wherever it arrives from, becomes plain text plus a little context and goes to the same employee that answers you in web chat, with the same skills, duties, tools, training, and memory. A WhatsApp thread is an ordinary conversation with a label saying where it came from, which is why the reply always returns to the place the question was asked.
Voice notes are part of the design rather than an afterthought. A spoken message is turned into text before the employee reads it, and when the original arrived as a voice note the reply can come back the same way, so a conversation held entirely by voice while you are driving still ends up in the written history.
Nothing you set up while waiting goes to waste. Employees, skills, duties, training, tasks, and memory belong to the employee rather than to a channel, so switching WhatsApp on the day it ships means the employee you already trained answers there straight away. Until then Telegram is live and gives you the same experience from a phone, Slack is live if your team works there, and every employee already has its own email address.
Meet People Where They Already Chat
WhatsApp is the default messaging app for a large part of the world, so a customer who writes to your business there expects an answer in minutes rather than the next working day. A connected employee is what closes that gap, because it reads the message and answers in the same conversation without anyone opening a dashboard.
For you it is simply the shorter path to delegating something. A two line message or a voice note sent from a queue becomes real work, and the result comes back in the same chat as well as in the workspace history.
The Same Employee, Not A Cut Down Bot
A channel changes how a message arrives, never who answers it. The employee replying on WhatsApp is the one you hired and trained, carrying the same skills, duties, tools, and memory it uses in web chat.
Approvals behave the same way. Anything an employee has to check with you before doing still waits for your go ahead, so putting a channel on your phone never quietly widens what it is allowed to do on its own.
One Number, One Employee
The planned setup is deliberately small: connect a WhatsApp Business number, pick the employee that answers it, and that is the configuration. There is no menu tree to design, no keyword routing to maintain, and no second persona to write.
Because the channel is switched on and off from the same page, you can also stop it cleanly. Web chat and the automatic schedule are the only two surfaces that can never be turned off, since they are how the product works at all.
How It Works
Planned: one number, one employee, replies in the same chat
When the channel ships, you connect a WhatsApp Business number from Settings, then Technical, then Channels, and choose the employee that answers it. That mapping is the whole setup.
An incoming message is turned into text and handed to that employee as an ordinary request. It runs the way a web chat message does, with the same skills, tools, duties, and memory, and anything that needs your approval still waits for it.
The reply is delivered back into the same WhatsApp conversation, and the whole exchange appears in the employee's history inside the workspace, so you can read it on a laptop later even though it happened on your phone.
Use Cases
Answer customers who only use WhatsApp
Point the number your customers already message at an employee so questions get an answer in minutes instead of waiting for someone to open a laptop.
Continue the work somewhere else
Start on WhatsApp, then open the workspace and carry on in web chat with the exchange already there, because memory follows the employee and not the channel.
Keep a written record of a spoken request
A voice note becomes text the employee can act on and you can search later, so a request made out loud does not disappear with the audio.
Comparison
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Answering customers on WhatsApp means someone watching a phone all day. | Once connected, the employee reads the message and answers in the same conversation. |
| A request made on the move waits until you are back at a laptop. | Send it from WhatsApp and the work has already started before you sit down. |
| Every new messaging app means another bot to build and another script to maintain. | A channel is only a delivery route: same employee, same skills, same memory, same approvals. |
| A voice note gets heard once and then lost. | Spoken messages become text the employee can act on and you can search later. |
FAQ
Can my AI employee reply to WhatsApp messages from customers?
Not yet. WhatsApp is on the Sistava roadmap and is not connected today, so no WhatsApp message reaches an employee. When it ships, a message sent to your connected WhatsApp Business number will be answered by the employee you mapped to it, inside the same conversation. Slack and Telegram already work exactly that way today.
Is WhatsApp available in Sistava right now?
No. It appears in Settings, then Technical, then Channels, in the Chat Apps group, with a Coming soon badge and no setup, no toggle, and no activity. Nothing routes to it until the integration ships.
Do I need a WhatsApp Business account to use this when it launches?
Yes. The plan is to connect a WhatsApp Business number to your workspace rather than a personal chat account, which is how businesses are permitted to run automated replies on WhatsApp at all. Your personal WhatsApp stays separate and untouched.
Will my employee remember a conversation if I start it on WhatsApp and finish it in the app?
Yes, that is the design. Memory belongs to the employee rather than to a channel, so a request made on WhatsApp is visible in the workspace history and can be picked up in web chat without repeating yourself.
What can I use instead of WhatsApp today?
Telegram, Slack, and each employee's own email address are all live, and web chat works in a phone browser. Telegram is the closest match if you want an employee inside a messaging app on your phone right now.
Can I turn the WhatsApp channel off after switching it on?
Yes. Once live it is an optional channel like Slack and Telegram, switched on and off from Settings, then Technical, then Channels. Web chat and the automatic schedule are the only surfaces that cannot be turned off.
Will WhatsApp voice notes work?
That is the plan. A voice note will be turned into text before the employee reads it, and when the message you sent was spoken the reply can come back as a voice note too. The written version lands in your history either way.
Where WhatsApp fits
WhatsApp is part of Ways you talk to them.
Chat in the app with live reasoning, speak to your AI voice agent over a call, message on Slack or WhatsApp, send an email, or embed a widget on your website. Every channel connects to the same AI agent with the same memory and capabilities. Switch channels mid-conversation and your employee picks up right where you left off.
- Ways you talk to them: Every channel. One conversation.
Read the guide
More in Channels
- Web Chat: Chat with any AI employee directly in the workspace, with a streaming reply, a live execution timeline showing what it is reading, thinking, and doing, and inline approve/reject buttons when it needs a sensitive action confirmed. It is the default channel: nothing to configure, works on desktop or mobile, and every conversation persists so you can pick it back up later.
- Voice Calls: Voice Calls is a planned channel for speaking to an AI employee out loud and hearing it reply in real time, instead of typing. It is not available yet: there is no voice button in the workspace today, and the feature is paused while the underlying voice flow is redesigned. When it ships, a voice call will run through the same skills, tools, and memory as a typed conversation.
- Connect an Email Provider: Point your own SendGrid, Mailgun, or Postmark inbound-parse webhook at a tenant-scoped endpoint and every email that lands there gets turned into work for an employee. Forward support requests, sales inquiries, or internal approval emails and the employee reads the sender, subject, and body, then acts on it in the background. You get a 202 response immediately; there's no waiting on the request.
- Personal Mailbox: Every employee gets its own email address on the shared Sistava domain the moment you hire it, no setup. Email it directly, CC it on a thread with other people, or forward something over, and it reads and replies within seconds. Free to send from, with a monthly cap by plan. Control the shared employee signature in Company Profile, or connect your own Gmail or Outlook when you want it sending as you, with no cap.
- Send from Gmail or Outlook: The built-in employee address is free and always on, but it sends as the employee, not as you. Connect your own Gmail or Outlook instead and an employee sends and replies from your real address, in your name, with no monthly sending cap on any plan.
- Talk to Your Employee on Video: In-App Video is a planned channel for live, face to face video calls with an AI employee, camera and microphone, directly inside the workspace. It has no working implementation today: it appears in Settings > Technical > Channels as a Coming soon placeholder only. Once it ships, it is meant to run on the same execution pipeline as every other channel, so the employee keeps its skills, tools, training, and conversation memory on a video call. If you need an employee in a live call today, it can already join a Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams meeting as a participant, which is a different capability and available now.
- Chat Widget: The Chat Widget will let you embed an AI employee directly on your public website so visitors can ask questions and get answers without leaving the page. It is on the roadmap and is not available to configure yet: today it appears in Settings > Technical > Channels as a Coming soon placeholder with no setup, embed snippet, or Manage action.
- SMS: SMS is a planned channel for reaching an AI employee by ordinary text message, with no app to install. It is on the roadmap and not available today: there is no SMS number, no inbound texting, and no way to turn it on yet. Until it ships, use web chat or Telegram for mobile access from any phone.
- Discord: Discord is a planned channel for bringing an AI employee into the servers and direct messages your community already uses. It will connect the same way Slack does today: authorize a bot through OAuth, then map it to one employee. It is not available to connect yet, so no Discord traffic reaches an employee until it ships. Slack, Telegram, each employee's own email address, and web chat cover the same job in the meantime.
- Calendar Invites: Add your employee's personal address as a guest on any Google, Outlook, or Apple calendar event and they show up for the meeting automatically, no RSVP or extra app on your side. Once the meeting starts, the employee joins the Meet, Zoom, or Teams call, listens, speaks when addressed, and writes a summary afterward. There is nothing to switch on for the invite itself, just turn on the Meeting Attender tool for that employee once.
- Slack Channel: Bring your AI employee into Slack as a real bot user your team can mention, DM, or trigger with a slash command. Every reply lands in the same thread, and memory, tasks, skills, and tools stay shared with web chat, so a conversation started on Slack continues anywhere else. You approve or reject requests right from Slack, and the bot only speaks when mentioned, DM'd, or already in a thread.
- Telegram Channel: Connect an AI employee to its own Telegram bot so you can message it from your phone the same way you message a person. It answers direct messages instantly, and joins group chats where it replies only when mentioned or replied to. Memory, tasks, and tools are shared with the web app, so a conversation started on Telegram picks up right where it left off on the desktop, and back again.