Getting started with Talko AI
The first-day walkthrough: sign up, connect your first channel, add your AI key, and send yourself a test message — all in one sitting.
- 1
Start your free trial
Sign up with your work email. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial and no credit card is required to start — you can explore the full platform before paying for anything.
- 2
Open Setup & status
This is the first thing you'll see after signing up. It's a checklist built for your specific plan — it only asks you to set up the channels and features your plan actually includes, so you're never staring at options you can't use yet. Each item shows a status pill: Ready, Attention, Problem, or Not set up.
- 3
Add your AI key
Before any channel can reply, Talko AI needs an AI model to think with. Click "Set up" next to AI in the checklist, or jump straight to our AI key guide.
- 4
Connect your first channel
Pick whichever channel your customers actually use — WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, YouTube, Google Business Profile reviews, or a website chat widget. Each has its own short guide below. Most take five to ten minutes.
- 5
Send yourself a test message
Once a channel shows "Ready", message it from your own phone or account. You should get an AI reply within a few seconds, drawn from your knowledge base if you've added one, or a sensible default reply if you haven't yet.
- 6
Invite your team
Add teammates from Settings so conversations can be assigned, labelled, and handled together — not just by whoever happens to be logged in.
Do the channels in order of how many customers actually message you there. If WhatsApp is 90% of your inbound, connect that first — you'll feel the win immediately instead of waiting until everything is wired up.
Common questions
Do I need a developer to set any of this up?
No. Every channel connects through a guided click-through flow (Meta's or Google's own login popup) — no code, no API keys to hunt down yourself, unless you choose the manual fallback option that some channels offer.
What happens when the 14-day trial ends?
You'll be asked to pick a plan to keep going. Nothing is deleted or paused mid-trial — you get the full 14 days to actually test it with real conversations.
I don't see a channel I expected in my checklist. Why?
The Setup & status checklist is plan-aware — it only shows channels included in your current plan. Check the pricing page, or upgrade from Settings, to unlock additional channels.
Ready to transform your customer conversations?
- Connect a number and go live in under an hour
- Bring your own AI key — predictable, transparent costs