# Prepare a WhatsApp AI agent and handoff

Connect trusted knowledge, authorized actions, evaluation and a clear human continuation.

## Prerequisites

A defined customer task, an eligible connected number, approved business sources and a receiving team.

## 1. Choose the operating model

Decide whether the experience uses Bird AI assistance or Meta Business Agent, and document the chosen runtime’s ownership. MCP access lets developer agents operate Bird resources; it does not by itself define a customer-facing assistant.

## 2. Prepare knowledge and identity

Select the product, policy and service sources the assistant may use. Assign an owner to freshness and conflicting information. Define how identity is established before the assistant retrieves personal details.

## 3. Connect scoped actions

Give each tool only the authority needed for the task. Clarify customer intent and obtain confirmation where appropriate. Keep the action reference so repeated requests do not silently duplicate an order change or reservation.

## 4. Design a useful handoff

Escalate when the customer asks, the request is ambiguous or a permitted action fails. Pass the goal, verified details and attempted steps to the receiving team. Coordinate automated and human ownership to avoid conflicting replies.

## 5. Evaluate the whole task

Rehearse ordinary questions, missing knowledge, policy exceptions, failed integrations and human transfer. Record task completion, unsupported answers and recovery quality. Recheck the evaluation when knowledge or tools change.

## Troubleshooting

If the answer is unsupported, inspect the source and retrieval context. If an action appears successful only in the conversation, verify the actual system record. A smooth response is not proof that the business task completed.

## Next steps

- [Explore the related WhatsApp capability](/products/whatsapp/ai-agents).
- [Find all WhatsApp guides and explained answers](/products/whatsapp/resources).
- [Prepare your first complete exchange](/products/whatsapp/getting-started).

## Related resources

- [Connecting WhatsApp to Bird: from buying a number to a live channel](/learn/whatsapp/connecting-whatsapp-to-bird) (video)
- [What is the 24-hour customer service window on WhatsApp?](/explained/whatsapp/what-is-the-24-hour-customer-service-window) (answer)
- [WhatsApp message builder](/tools/whatsapp-message-builder) (tool)
- [WhatsApp](/products/whatsapp) (product)

[Get an implementation brief](/learn/workspace?topic=whatsapp)