Most Kenyan businesses we work with sell on WhatsApp. The same questions arrive all day: what does this cost, do you have it in stock, are you free on Saturday, what's the till number? Someone has to answer every one, often late at night, and every slow reply is a customer who might buy elsewhere.
An AI assistant can answer those questions in seconds. The risk is that it answers them wrongly: a made-up price, a booking for a slot that doesn't exist, or a "thank you for paying" when the money never arrived. So when we built two WhatsApp assistants this month, we started with the rules, not the chat.
Two assistants, two very different jobs
One number for three businesses. Our own WhatsApp line serves BodaSwift (deliveries), Bridgetree Technologies (software and websites) and Bridgetree Learn (our coding school). The assistant works out which business a customer means from the button they tapped on our website, from what they write, or by asking them to pick. For BodaSwift it collects the pickup and drop-off details and creates a delivery request, then waits for the owner's quote. For Bridgetree and Bridgetree Learn it answers questions and saves the enquiry or course application straight into the systems we already use.
A sales and booking assistant for a Nairobi hair and wig studio. This one sells. It answers questions about products and services, sends photos, checks free appointment slots, takes bookings and asks for payment with an M-Pesa prompt on the customer's phone. When the payment lands, it confirms the order or booking.
Five rules we build into every assistant
- The AI never sets a price. Prices, stock, delivery fees and deposits come from the business's own records. The assistant can look them up, but it has no way to invent or change them. If a price isn't in the records, it says so and hands over to a person.
- M-Pesa confirms payment, not the chat. The assistant sends an M-Pesa STK prompt through Safaricom's Daraja API. An order is only marked paid when Safaricom reports a successful payment for the exact amount requested. Duplicate notifications are ignored, so nothing is counted twice.
- Stock and bookings change only when money lands. A product is only taken out of stock once it's paid for. A booking that needs a deposit holds its slot for 30 minutes and is released if payment doesn't arrive. If an item sells out in between, the order goes to staff to sort out.
- A person is always one message away. Some requests need judgement, like complaints, refunds or a bridal appointment. The assistant hands these to a person and stops replying in that chat until staff hand it back. On our own line, the owner can quote a delivery or reply to a customer straight from their personal WhatsApp.
- We follow WhatsApp's rules. Both assistants run on the official WhatsApp Cloud API from Meta, not a workaround that can get your number banned. They reply freely only within WhatsApp's 24-hour customer service window, and use pre-approved message templates for anything later, such as appointment reminders the day before.
What it's built on
- Claude, by Anthropic, holds the conversation and decides which action to take: search products, check slots, create a booking, request a payment or hand over to a person.
- The WhatsApp Cloud API handles messages, tap-to-reply buttons and approved templates.
- M-Pesa Daraja sends the payment prompt and confirms the result.
- Your existing systems stay the source of truth. Enquiries and applications go into the tools you already use.
Every action the assistant can take is tested automatically before release, with WhatsApp, M-Pesa and the AI simulated, so we can change the assistant without breaking how it handles money.
Is a WhatsApp assistant right for your business?
It's a good fit if you answer the same questions many times a day, take bookings or orders over WhatsApp, or lose sales because replies come too late. It's less useful if most of your conversations need a specialist's judgement. Even then, an assistant that collects the details first can save your team time.
New to this? Our guide to WhatsApp automation in Kenya covers the free options, what Meta charges and the consent rules.
