WhatsApp and artificial intelligence
AI assistant
An AI assistant is a program that holds a conversation in natural language and, with a language model behind it, understands what it is told even without keywords. In a residence it handles the messaging channel: it answers what is in the house rules, takes requests and passes the rest to a person.
Also known aschatbot · bot · virtual assistant · AI agent
What it is exactly
The difference from the old menu bot is that nobody has to choose option 3: the resident writes "the blind in 204 is broken and won't come down" and the assistant understands that it is a fault, what kind and where. What does not change is that it should only answer with what the residence has given it: the house rules, the timetables, the frequently asked questions. When something is not there, or is a decision, the right thing is to say so and pass it on: that is the handoff to a human.
From 2 August 2026, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on artificial intelligence requires the provider, whoever develops it and places it on the market under its own name, to design it so that people know they are talking to an AI, unless that is obvious (Article 50(1)). That is AI transparency, and Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, which amended the AI Act in July 2026, did not change it. An assistant that serves residents is not among the high-risk uses in Annex III. How Bedel works with several languages and with the team: languages and escalation to people.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that an AI assistant knows what is going on in the building. It only knows what it is told and what the residence has loaded into it. If the house rules do not say what time the door closes, the right answer is that it does not know.
Sources
Related terms
- WhatsApp Business PlatformThe WhatsApp Business Platform is Meta's platform for organisations to handle WhatsApp at scale from their own software, through the Cloud API, instead of by hand from the WhatsApp Business app on a phone. It comes with its own system of approved templates and sending rules.
- AI transparencyAI transparency is the requirement that people know they are talking to an artificial intelligence system. Article 50 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 places it on the provider, who must design the system to tell them, unless it is obvious, from 2 August 2026.
- Handoff to a humanA handoff to a human is passing a conversation from the AI assistant to a member of staff, because the person asks for it or because the matter needs a decision. Done well, it reaches a specific phone with the context and, if nobody answers, moves up to the person in charge.