People reach a Wetel AI employee today in four ways: an embeddable 3D avatar that speaks and listens (and also takes typed text), a text chat on your website built from a working reference, your own app or system through the API, and a messaging app that is connected directly. Phone calls are not built: an AI employee cannot receive or place a real phone call today.
Think of one person with several doors into their office. Behind every door it is the same role, workflow and knowledge, supervised by the same workspace owner. Only the way in changes.
Which door is good for what?
| Way in | Good for | Who sets it up |
|---|---|---|
3D avatar (<vai-avatar>) | A spoken, face-to-face style conversation on a web page: a front desk, an interview, a kiosk | A developer adds one script tag and starts each conversation from your backend |
| Text chat on your site | A plain chat box | A developer adapts the working reference page; there is no packaged chat component yet |
| Your own app, through the API | Any screen or system you already run: a portal, a mobile app, a back-office tool | A developer: start, send and end calls, plus a subscription for replies |
| A messaging app, connected directly | Customers who already message you in that app | Set up through the API with a dashboard login; there is no bridge for you to host |
How does the avatar work?
It is one web component. You add a script to a page, pass in the values your backend received when it started the conversation, and the component does the rest: it speaks each reply with lip-sync, listens for the answer and turns speech into text. It also accepts typed messages, and a visitor can interrupt it through a push-to-talk or stop button you provide. A photorealistic video avatar is an option in limited pilot.
What about my own app?
Wetel is built to sit behind your own screens. Your backend starts a conversation with an API key, your app sends each message, and the reply streams back over a live subscription. You own the whole interface. This is also how you connect a channel Wetel does not package: the docs describe building your own small bridge.
Which messaging apps are connected directly?
One packaged messaging connector is live today. Three other platforms are named in the API, but every operation on them returns an error until their adapters ship.
Once switched on, it receives the customer’s messages, runs the conversation and sends the reply back. A photo or document the customer sends reaches the workflow as a link it can use (see how an AI employee reads a photo).
Can people talk instead of type?
Yes, in two places:
- On the avatar, speech is the normal mode: the visitor speaks and hears the answer.
- In the connected messaging app, a voice note is transcribed with the AI employee’s own language settings and answered like a typed message. Spoken replies are off by default; one connector setting turns them on, mirroring the customer (voice note in, voice reply out; text in, text out), and a second makes every reply spoken.
For languages, see voice notes in English, Malay and Chinese.
What is not built?
- Phone calls. On the roadmap as direction, not a date.
- A packaged chat widget. Today it is a reference page to copy.
- More packaged messaging channels. The others named in the API do not work yet.
- Chat inside online marketplaces.
Whichever door people use, the workflow behind it decides what the AI employee may do, and a person in your workspace stays in charge.
Related reference docs
- Avatar & 3D Rendering: the
<vai-avatar>component, its settings, typed input and interruptions - Chat Widget: the working text-chat reference you can adapt
- Core API Flow: start a conversation, send messages, read replies
- Channels: the packaged messaging connector, voice notes and spoken replies
- Sending Voice Messages to an Agent: transcribe a voice note from your own system
- Roadmap: telephony and what else is direction, not live
If you are deciding where your customers should meet their first AI employee, tell us which work you’d hand over first and we will tell you which door fits it today.