How to Connect an AI Chatbot to Instagram, Step by Step

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.

This is the step-by-step version of our Instagram channel overview.

What you’ll need

• A Evoriqa workspace (create one free, no credit card)
• A chatbot trained on your business
• An Instagram professional account (Business or Creator) — no Facebook Page needed
• 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 or Creator. Meta’s Instagram messaging works on a professional account on its own — there’s no Facebook Page to create or link, and nothing to set up on 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 generate a token

1. 1Go to developers.facebook.com and create an app of type Business.
2. 2Add the Instagram product, then open Instagram → API setup with Instagram login.
3. 3Connect your Instagram professional account.
4. 4Generate a long-lived access token carrying the instagram_business_basic and instagram_business_manage_messages permissions — either from the dashboard’s token generator or through the Instagram Business Login flow. It’s a 60-day token, and Evoriqa refreshes it for you before it expires. No Facebook Page and no Page token are involved.
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. 1Instagram app secret: from app → Settings → Basic.
2. 2Verify token (you choose): 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. 3Instagram access token: the long-lived Instagram user token you generated in step 4.

There’s also an optional Instagram account ID field — leave it blank and Evoriqa auto-detects it from the token on connect. Click connect and Evoriqa shows you the Callback URL. Keep this tab open.

Step 6: Add the webhook in Meta

In the Meta app, open Instagram → Webhooks (some dashboards put it under API setup → Webhooks).

1. 1Click Add Callback URL, paste the Callback URL and the verify token you chose, then verify and save.
2. 2Subscribe the `instagram` object's `messages` field.

That's the whole webhook — there's no Facebook Page to subscribe separately, because the modern Instagram Login integration delivers DMs straight from the Instagram account. If the webhook verifies green but nothing arrives, the usual cause is back in step 3: Allow access to messages is still off in the Instagram app, or the account isn't a professional one.

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. 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 account you'll be testing from 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 that you subscribed the instagram object's messages field 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_business_manage_messages 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.