Channels Overview

Beyond the website chat widget, your AI Bot Kit chatbot can operate inside the messaging apps your customers already use. Connect once, and the same trained chatbot answers questions, captures leads, and hands off to a human across every channel.

Supported Channels

Channel	Type	Auth Model	Capabilities
WhatsApp	Messaging	Embedded signup (via Pinnacle)	Two-way messaging, media, 24-hour customer-service window, owner takeover
Telegram	Messaging	Bot token	Two-way messaging, automatic webhook registration
Instagram	Messaging	Page access token (Meta Graph API)	Two-way DMs, page-scoped
Slack	Workspace chat	Bot token + signing secret	Two-way messaging in any channel the bot is invited to
Discord	Workspace chat	Bot token + application ID + public key	Two-way messaging, /ask slash command
Google Chat	Workspace chat	Service-account managed (one-click)	Two-way messaging, space-scoped

Where to find these: Open any chatbot, go to INTEGRATIONS in the left sidebar. Each channel has its own card with a Connect button and credential fields.

Plan Availability

Plan	Channel Integrations
Free	❌ Not available
Basic	✅ All channels (counts toward AI Action quota where applicable)
Essential	✅ All channels + 3 Custom AI Actions
Business	✅ All channels + 5 Custom AI Actions

Channel messages count against your Monthly AI Messages quota (the same pool used by the website widget).

How a Channel Conversation Works

+---------------------+        +-------------------------+        +-------------+
| Customer messages   |  --->  | AI BotKit channel       |  --->  | RAG engine  |
| WhatsApp / Telegram |        | webhook receives,       |        | + your KB   |
| / Slack / etc.      |        | parses, dedups          |        +------+------+
+---------------------+        +-------------------------+               |
                                                                         v
                                                              +----------------------+
                                                              | Reply sent back via  |
                                                              | the channel client   |
                                                              +----------+-----------+
                                                                         |
                                                                         v
                                                            +----------------------------+
                                                            | Logged in Conversations,   |
                                                            | counts toward usage,       |
                                                            | available for handover     |
                                                            +----------------------------+

Every inbound message:

1. Hits the channel-specific webhook (/api/whatsapp/callback, /api/telegram/callback/[token], etc.) where its signature is verified.

2. Returns HTTP 200 immediately, then asynchronously runs the RAG pipeline.

3. The reply is cleaned (HTML stripped for WhatsApp, etc.) and sent back through the channel's outbound client.

4. The conversation appears in your dashboard's Conversations view, with a session ID prefix that identifies the source (wa_, tg_, slack_, discord_, ig_, gc_).

Live Chat Takeover Works on Every Channel

You can take over any channel-routed conversation from the dashboard — not just website chats. See Live Chat & Human Takeover. For WhatsApp, Meta's 24-hour customer-service window applies.

Human Handover vs. Channel Integration — what's the difference?

These are two related but distinct features:

• Channel Integrations make the chatbot operate inside a messaging app. A WhatsApp user chats with your bot in WhatsApp.

• Human Handover lets a website widget user switch off to a human via WhatsApp/Email/Telegram/Instagram/Messenger. The bot stops; a human takes over in the chosen channel.

Use both together: receive customers in WhatsApp and let website visitors escalate to WhatsApp.

Security

• All channel tokens and secrets are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before being stored in the chatbot's integrations JSONB.

• Inbound webhooks verify HMAC-SHA256 (Slack, WhatsApp, Instagram), Ed25519 (Discord), or JWT (Google Chat) signatures.

• Tokens cannot be reused on a different chatbot — the system detects conflicts and asks you to confirm a transfer.