Instagram

This guide shows how to connect your Quickchat AI Agent to Instagram. Once an Instagram Professional account is connected, your AI Agent replies to the DMs that account receives, and every conversation appears in your Quickchat AI Inbox.

If you get stuck, jump to Troubleshooting & FAQs or contact us.

Step 0 - Prerequisites

• An Instagram Professional account (Business or Creator). Personal accounts cannot receive messages from an app, so the connection will not work on one. You can switch an existing account to Professional in the Instagram app.
• Access and manage messages left switched on when Instagram asks for permission. Without it your AI Agent cannot reply to DMs.
• Sign in as that account when you connect. Instagram authorizes whichever account your browser is already signed into, and it does not offer an account picker.

Caution

An Instagram account connects to one AI Agent at a time. Inbound DMs resolve to exactly one Agent, so two Agents on the same account would take each other’s conversations.

Step 1 - Connect your Instagram account

1. Open the Quickchat AI App and go to External Apps.
2. Click Instagram, then click Connect to Instagram.
3. An Instagram window opens. Sign in if prompted, and make sure you are signed in as the professional account you want to use.
4. Review the permissions and leave Access and manage messages switched on.
5. Confirm. Instagram shows Instagram connected!, the window closes, and the panel fills in your @username and a Connected since date.

That’s it. Your AI Agent is now live on Instagram DMs! 🎉

If the login window does not open

Some browsers block the pop-up, and mobile Safari blocks it by default. When that happens the panel shows “Your browser blocked the Instagram login window” and offers Continue in this tab. Click it and the same sign-in runs in the current tab. Quickchat brings you back to the app when Instagram is done.

If you are signed in as the wrong account

Instagram connects whichever account your browser is already signed into. If that turns out to be a personal account, Instagram shows a generic error before Quickchat ever sees the attempt. To avoid that, click Sign in as a different account under the Connect button before you connect. That sends you through Instagram’s sign-in again so you can pick the professional account.

Step 2 - Enable the bot

Use the Enable Instagram toggle to switch the integration on or off without disconnecting the account. When it’s on, your AI Agent replies to incoming DMs; when it’s off, the account stays connected but the Agent stops replying.

Try it out

Send a DM to your connected account from a different Instagram account. Your AI Agent replies, and the conversation appears in your Quickchat AI Inbox with the sender’s Instagram name, where you can read the full transcript and take over from the AI at any time.

Until the first DM arrives the panel shows a Waiting for your first DM note. That is not an error, it just means nothing has come in yet.

What your AI Agent can receive

Your AI Agent reads:

• Text messages.
• Photos and videos, which it can look at and answer questions about.
• Files, which it is told arrived and can refer to by name.
• Voice notes, which are transcribed to text before the Agent reads them. If a voice note cannot be transcribed, the Agent is told a voice message arrived rather than answering a message it never received.
• Story replies. The text someone types when replying to your story reaches the Agent, marked as a reply to a story. The Agent cannot see the story itself, so it answers from the text.

It ignores:

• Story mentions. Being tagged in someone’s story is not a conversation, so no reply is sent.
• Its own messages. Instagram echoes back everything your account sends, including your AI Agent’s replies. Those are dropped, otherwise the Agent would answer itself in a loop.
• Deleted messages, and message types Instagram itself marks as unsupported.
• Shared posts and reels. If someone shares a post along with a message, the Agent sees the message text but not the shared item.

Attachments above 25 MB are not downloaded. The Agent is told an attachment arrived that could not be opened, so it can ask the sender to describe it.

The 24-hour reply window

Instagram lets a business reply to a person for 24 hours after that person’s last message. Each new message from them starts the window again.

This is Instagram’s rule, not a Quickchat setting, and there is no way to reopen a closed window. Your AI Agent is almost never affected because it answers straight away. It matters when a human takes over hours later: if the window has closed, Instagram rejects the reply and the Inbox shows “Instagram only lets businesses reply within 24 hours of the person’s last message. This conversation is outside that window.”

Replying yourself

Open the conversation in the Inbox and take over from the AI, the same as on any other channel. Two things are specific to Instagram:

• Replies are text only. Sending images or files from the Inbox composer is not supported on Instagram.
• A reply must fit in one Instagram message. Instagram caps a message at 1,000 bytes, which is roughly 1,000 Latin characters but closer to 250 for emoji-heavy text or for Japanese, Chinese and Korean. If your reply is too long the Inbox asks you to shorten it. Your AI Agent’s own replies are split automatically, so this only applies to messages you type.

Staying connected

Instagram issues an access token that lasts 60 days. Quickchat renews it automatically, well before it runs out, so a healthy connection keeps working with nothing for you to do. The Connected since date on the panel is when you connected, not a deadline.

Messages you may see on the Instagram panel, and what to do:

• “Instagram access has expired.” The token lapsed, which usually means access was removed on the Instagram side. Click Reconnect and sign in again.
• “Instagram is refusing replies from this account.” Instagram rejected a reply sent with this connection. Click Reconnect and sign in again.
• “Connected, but no message has arrived yet.” The connection looks healthy but no DM has ever reached your Agent. This almost always means the message permission was never really granted, or was removed later.
• “Instagram is refusing replies because message access is off.” The same cause, confirmed by a rejected reply.

To check the permission in the Instagram mobile app, open Settings and activity, then Your app and media, then App website permissions, then Apps and websites. Quickchat AI should be listed under Active. If it is not, or if replies are still being refused, click Reconnect in Quickchat and leave the message permission on.

Reconnect keeps the connection in place and refreshes your access. Disconnect stops your account receiving AI Agent replies.

What Quickchat AI can and cannot do with your account

We only request the permissions needed to identify your account and reply to DMs. We never post to your feed, read your followers, or change your account settings.

Troubleshooting & FAQs

That Instagram account is already connected.

• Another AI Agent already answers on that account. Disconnect Instagram on that Agent first, or connect a different account.

Instagram needs permission to manage your messages.

• The sign-in completed without the message permission. Click Reconnect and leave Access and manage messages switched on.

I get an error saying the sign-in link was already used.

• Each connection attempt can be used once. Start a new one from the Instagram panel.

Instagram would not enable messages.

• Instagram accepted the sign-in but would not turn on message delivery. Try again, and contact us if it keeps failing.

My AI Agent doesn’t reply.

• Check that the Enable Instagram toggle is on and the panel shows the account as connected.
• Confirm you connected the intended account and that the correct AI Agent is selected.
• Confirm the sender’s last message is less than 24 hours old.
• Check that Quickchat AI is still authorized under Settings and activity → Your app and media → App website permissions → Apps and websites in the Instagram app.

I connected the wrong account.

• Click Reconnect in the Instagram panel and sign in as the correct account, or use Sign in as a different account to go through Instagram’s sign-in from scratch.

Can I connect a personal Instagram account?

• No. Instagram does not deliver messages from a personal account to an app. Switch the account to Professional (Business or Creator) in the Instagram app, then connect it.

Can two AI Agents share one Instagram account?

• No. One Instagram account connects to one AI Agent.

How do I change the welcome message?

• The greeting is your AI Agent’s message, configured in the Quickchat AI App. Update it there and it applies to every channel, including Instagram.

Need Help?

Still stuck? Reach out on Discord or contact us and we’ll help you get your account connected.