How to add an AI chatbot to Instagram DMs

Your customers already live in Instagram. They DM about products, ask if you’re open, reply to your stories, then wait. Every hour a message sits unread is a sale cooling off.

Connect your Instagram DMs to Evoriqa and the AI answers every message itself — the same knowledge-grounded pipeline that runs your website widget — and the reply goes straight back out as a DM, so customers get a real answer in seconds. When someone asks for a real person (or you run out of message credits), the thread flips to your team's wait queue with its real arrival time and fires a desktop alert so nothing slips past you. Want a human on every thread instead? A per-channel AI replies switch turns Instagram human-first, and the AI copilot drafts each reply for your team to review and send. Here’s how to set it up through Meta.

What you’ll need

• A Evoriqa workspace (create one free, no credit card)
• A chatbot trained on your business
• An Instagram professional (business) account linked to a Facebook Page
• Admin access to that Page and a Meta developer account

Step 1: Train your agent

Before you send a single reply, give your agent something to say. Crawl your site, upload your docs, and add the FAQs you answer every day. The answers it sends come from that knowledge instead of guesses. See the training guide for the full process.

Step 2: Switch Instagram to a professional account

Open the Instagram app and go to Settings and privacy → Account type and tools → Switch to professional account, and pick Business. During setup, link the account to your Facebook Page, or connect one later from the Page’s linked accounts settings. Meta’s messaging tools only work on a professional account tied to a Page.

Step 3: Allow message access in the app

Still in the Instagram app, open Settings → Messages and story replies → Allow access to messages and turn it on. This lets connected tools read and reply to your DMs and story replies. Leave it off and the webhook stays silent.

Step 4: Create the Meta app and connect your accounts

1. 1Go to developers.facebook.com and create an app of type Business.
2. 2Add the Messenger product, then open Messenger → Settings (newer dashboards call it Messenger API settings) and its Instagram section.
3. 3Connect the Facebook Page and the linked Instagram account you set up earlier.
4. 4Click Generate token for that Page and copy it. That single token covers the Instagram DMs on the linked account.
5. 5Open app Settings → Basic and copy the App Secret. Meta signs every incoming DM with it, and the channel won't accept messages without it.

Step 5: Connect the channel in Evoriqa

In Evoriqa, open the chatbot you want to handle Instagram, go to its Channels tab, and choose Instagram. (Channels are set per chatbot, so there’s no separate global Channels page.) Fill in three values:

1. 1Meta App Secret: from app → Settings → Basic.
2. 2Verify token: any string you invent. Meta uses it once to prove the webhook is really yours; you'll paste the same value into Meta next.
3. 3IG access token: the Page token you generated in step 4.

Click connect and Evoriqa shows you the Callback URL. Keep this tab open.

Step 6: Add the webhook in Meta and subscribe the Page

Back in Messenger settings, find the Webhooks section.

1. 1Click Add Callback URL, paste the Callback URL and the verify token you chose, then verify and save.
2. 2Subscribe to the messages field.
3. 3Then subscribe your Page. In the same panel, find the Page your Instagram account is linked to, click Add subscriptions, and tick messages there as well.

Step 2 subscribes your *app*; step 3 subscribes your *Page*. Do only the first and the webhook sits there showing a green Verified badge while not a single DM ever reaches you. This is the single most common reason an Instagram setup looks perfect and does nothing.

Step 7: Give your test account a role on the app

A new Meta app is in Development mode, where Meta only delivers messages from people who hold a role on the app or the Page. DM your business account from an unrelated personal Instagram and nothing arrives. No error anywhere, just silence.

In the app dashboard open App roles → Roles and add the Facebook account behind your test Instagram profile as Administrator, Developer, or Tester, then accept the invite from that account.

Step 8: Send a real DM and check the inbox

From your test account, DM your Instagram profile or reply to one of your stories. The AI answers in seconds, right in the DM thread, grounded in your knowledge base. No one on your team had to touch it. Open your Evoriqa shared inbox and the conversation is there, tagged Instagram, next to every other channel, with the AI’s reply already logged. To see a handoff, DM again asking for a person: the thread flips to needing a human and joins the wait queue, and if desktop alerts are on your browser pings you the moment it does. A teammate opens it, replies from the inbox, and it goes straight back out as a DM.

Nothing arrives? The channel row's health chip narrows it down fast. No messages yet means Meta isn't calling at all. Recheck the Page subscription in step 6, the app role in step 7, and the "Allow access to messages" toggle from step 3. Signature rejected means Meta *is* calling and the App Secret on the channel is wrong.

Desktop alerts are opt-in per browser. Turn them on from the inbox header or Settings → Notifications.

Before you go live

Development mode is fine for testing with your own team. To let real customers DM you, Meta requires the app switched to Live with Advanced Access to instagram_manage_messages (and pages_messaging) granted through App Review, which includes verifying your business. That's Meta's process, not ours. Start it early, since approval takes days rather than minutes.

Take it further

• Every DM is auto-tagged with intent, sentiment, and a lead score, so your team knows which to pick up first
• Repeat customers merge into one contact timeline across every channel, so context follows them into the DMs
• The AI answers in the DMs just like it does in your website widget, always within your plan's message quota, credit balance, and spend cap
• Prefer your team on every thread? Turn off AI replies for the channel and each DM waits in the inbox, with an AI copilot drafting a suggested reply and writing handoff summaries
• Connect WhatsApp, Messenger, and more to the same shared inbox and knowledge base
• White-label every reply so it reads as your brand, not ours

Same knowledge, same inbox, now covering where your audience already scrolls — the AI answering the routine DMs and your team stepping in the instant a customer asks. See more on the Instagram channel page, or create your workspace free and get DMs and story replies landing in one place your team can keep up with.