How to add an AI chatbot to SMS

People text the businesses they trust. It’s fast, it’s personal, and almost every message gets opened. The problem is speed: a text that waits an hour for a reply might as well not be answered. Connect your Twilio number to Evoriqa and, by default, every inbound text is answered by AI — the same knowledge-grounded pipeline that runs on your website widget — with a grounded reply sent straight back as a text. Want a person in the loop instead? Flip the AI replies toggle off and that channel goes human-first: the text lands in one shared inbox flagged for a human, in the wait queue with its real arrival time and firing a desktop alert the second it arrives, and a teammate replies with an AI-drafted suggestion from your knowledge base.

Here’s how to put your Twilio number in the Evoriqa inbox and start answering texts from one place.

What you'll need

• A Evoriqa workspace (create one free, no credit card)
• A chatbot trained on your content
• A Twilio account with an SMS-capable phone number you own

Step 1: Train your agent first

Before it can answer a text, your agent needs to know your business. Crawl your site, upload your docs, and add the FAQs you already get every day. The care you put in here is the difference between grounded answers and guesses. See the training guide for the full setup.

Step 2: Get an SMS-capable Twilio number

In the Twilio Console, buy or select a phone number that supports SMS. Go to Phone Numbers → Manage → Active numbers and confirm the number you want to use has the messaging capability.

If you’re sending to US recipients, you’ll also need to complete A2P 10DLC registration in Twilio, which links your number to a registered brand and campaign so carriers deliver your texts reliably. Registration is a review step, not an instant switch. Until your brand and campaign are approved, US carriers may filter or drop what the number sends, so start it before the day you plan to go live.

Step 3: Connect SMS in Evoriqa

In the Evoriqa dashboard, open the chatbot you want to handle texts, go to its Channels tab, and pick SMS. (Channels are set per chatbot. There’s no separate global Channels page.) Evoriqa gives you a webhook URL.

Copy that URL. This is the address Twilio will call every time someone texts your number.

Step 4: Point your Twilio number at the webhook

Back in the Twilio Console, go to Phone Numbers → Manage → Active numbers and click the number you’re using.

1. 1Scroll to Messaging configuration.
2. 2Under A message comes in, choose Webhook.
3. 3Paste the webhook URL from Evoriqa.
4. 4Set the method to HTTP POST.
5. 5Click Save.

That’s the whole handoff. From now on, every text to that number routes into your Evoriqa inbox.

Step 5: Send a test text

Grab your phone and text your Twilio number a real question, like your hours or your return policy. Within moments the AI texts back a grounded reply pulled from your knowledge base, and the exchange shows up in your shared inbox tagged SMS so your team can follow along. If the texter asks for a person — or the workspace runs out of credits — the thread flips to needing a human: it waits in the queue with its true arrival time, and if desktop alerts are on, your browser pings you the moment it lands. Turn the AI replies toggle off for this channel and SMS goes human-first instead. The text lands flagged for a human, and the AI copilot drafts a suggested reply from your knowledge base for a teammate to review, edit, and send back out on the same number.

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

When a test text doesn't come back

If you texted your number and nothing answered, the break is almost always in one of three places, and the Twilio Console will tell you which. Open Monitor → Logs, find your test message, and read it top to bottom.

• No webhook request against the message. The number isn't actually pointed at Evoriqa. Go back to Step 4 and confirm A message comes in is set to Webhook, the method is HTTP POST, and the URL matches the one on the Channels tab character for character. A stale URL left over from another tool, or a single stray character, fails without any warning.
• A webhook request that errored. Twilio logs error 11200 when it reaches your URL but gets an error back instead of a reply. Re-copy the webhook URL from Evoriqa; a half-pasted address is the usual cause.
• A reply that left but never delivered. That’s on the carrier side, and the error code names the reason.

The codes worth recognizing on an SMS number:

If the codes all look clean but US texts still don’t arrive, check your A2P 10DLC registration before anything else: while a brand or campaign is pending or rejected, carriers quietly filter the traffic even though Twilio accepted the message.

What's different about answering over SMS

Text messages are billed and delivered differently from chat on your website, and two of those differences shape how you write your knowledge base.

The first is segmentation. A single SMS carries 160 characters. Go past that and the carrier splits the message into segments of about 153 characters each and bills each one, so a long answer isn't one text. It's three or four, at three or four times the cost. Adding an emoji or a curly quote can quietly switch the whole message to a format that fits only about 70 characters per segment, which shortens the budget again. The wording of your answers has a price. Because your agent replies from the knowledge you gave it, tight answers are the lever: a clear two-line return policy costs less to send than a paragraph that says the same thing.

The second is links. A URL counts against that same character budget and can push a reply into an extra segment, and links sent through public shorteners are filtered by carriers more often than a plain address on your own domain. If an answer needs to point somewhere, use a real link on a domain your customers recognize and keep the text around it short.

Consent is the sender's job

The A2P 10DLC registration in Step 2 is only the carrier-facing half of permission; the opt-in you collect, the opt-outs you honor, and the messaging rules where your customers live are the legal half, and they stay with you. The SMS channel page covers how a STOP reply is handled once that consent exists.

If you send appointment reminders, connect a calendar first

Reminders sent from your Twilio number come back as live threads, so before you send any, connect Calendly or Cal.com. That's what lets a "can we move to Thursday?" reply offer a genuinely open time and rebook in the thread instead of triggering a callback. The SMS channel page walks through the confirm, reschedule, and cancel replies a reminder brings back and how each one is closed out.

Take it further

• Every text is auto-tagged with intent, sentiment, and a lead score, so your team knows what to pick up first
• Repeat texters merge into one contact timeline across every channel, so you’re never guessing who’s who
• In human-first mode, the AI copilot drafts replies and handoff summaries. Your team reviews, edits, and sends
• Turn on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, or a voice line from the same shared inbox, no retraining
• SMS answers on its own by default, and so do WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Plus the website widget and voice line reply instantly and grounded, no human in the loop
• White-label the whole experience so it reads as your brand, not ours

One shared inbox holds your texts, your calls, your website chat, and your social DMs, all backed by one knowledge base you train once. The AI answers directly over SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, the website widget, and the voice line. See the SMS channel page for the full picture, or create your workspace and run it on a number of your own.