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Connections and data sources

Connecting WhatsApp to Brief

Brief runs in WhatsApp as a full chat surface. Once your phone is linked, you can ask Brief the same things you would ask it in the web app, without opening a browser. Your daily brief can arrive there too, once you turn it on. There is nothing to install. The connection uses the WhatsApp already on your phone.

You connect once from Settings → Connections, under Connect another account, and confirm the link from your phone. It takes about a minute.

Before you start

You need WhatsApp on the phone whose number you want to link, and you need to be signed in to Brief at app.trybrief.ai.

The number that sends the confirmation message is the number Brief links, so send it from your own phone. Brief links one WhatsApp number per account at a time.

Start the connection

  1. In Brief, go to Settings → Connections.
  2. Find WhatsApp in the Connect another account card, which lists the services you have not connected yet. Its line reads "Chat with Brief in WhatsApp, and get your daily brief there if you turn it on."
  3. Click Connect.
  4. A Connect WhatsApp dialog opens with a QR code, an Open in WhatsApp link, a six-character verification code, and a countdown. You have ten minutes before the code expires.
  5. Confirm from your phone using one of the three methods below.

Leave the Brief tab open while you confirm. The dialog checks for your message every few seconds and closes on its own once the link is confirmed. WhatsApp then appears as a card in the Accounts group, with your phone number. If you close the dialog after sending the code, the page checks once. If Brief has not yet received the code, WhatsApp stays under Connect another account, and reloading the page later shows it once the link completes.

Confirm from your phone

Scan the QR code

The fastest route when Brief is open on a laptop and the phone you want to link is a different device.

  1. Point your phone's camera at the QR code on screen.
  2. Open the link your camera offers. WhatsApp opens a chat with Brief and pre-fills a message beginning with BRIEF-.
  3. Send the message exactly as it is. The text after BRIEF- identifies your Brief account, so do not edit it or add anything around it.

If you are already reading this on the phone you want to link, click Open in WhatsApp in the dialog instead of scanning. It opens the same pre-filled chat. Send the message unchanged.

Send the verification code

Useful when you already have a WhatsApp thread with Brief, such as when you are reconnecting after a disconnect.

  1. Open your existing WhatsApp thread with Brief.
  2. Send the six-character code from the card and nothing else. No greeting, no punctuation around it. Brief reads the code only when it is the entire message.

What confirms it worked

Brief replies in WhatsApp: "Connected. You can now chat with Brief here. To get your daily brief here too, turn on the WhatsApp brief in Brief's settings, under Notifications."

Back in Brief, the Connect WhatsApp dialog closes and WhatsApp appears as a card in the Accounts group, with your phone number, the date it was connected, and Manage. Disconnect is inside Manage.

What you get once connected

Your daily brief can arrive in WhatsApp. Connecting does not turn it on. Turn on WhatsApp in the Daily brief group under Settings → Notifications. Brief then sends a count of your meetings, priority emails and decisions, with a link to the full brief in the app. It goes out at your Briefing time, on your Briefing days, both under Settings → Briefing & Actions. On other days it sends no scheduled brief there. The WhatsApp switch is separate from the email, so turning the email off leaves WhatsApp in place. Turn the WhatsApp switch off to stop the brief there. Chat keeps working.

You can chat with Brief. Ask questions the way you would in the web app. See Skills and example prompts for what is worth asking. Long answers arrive as several consecutive messages rather than one wall of text.

Send /clear to start over. It resets the WhatsApp conversation, and Brief confirms with "Got it -- starting a fresh conversation. How can I help you today?" Your data is untouched. Only the running thread resets.

Your WhatsApp thread keeps its own conversation history, separate from the chat in the web app. Both draw on the same underlying context, so what Brief knows does not change between them. Only the thread you are reading does.

Quiet threads and WhatsApp's 24-hour rule

WhatsApp limits what a business can send into a thread that has been quiet. When there has been no recent activity between you and Brief, your brief, if you turned it on, arrives as a short pre-approved WhatsApp notification rather than the full summary. Reply in the thread and the ordinary conversation resumes. The full briefing is in the web app either way.

Limits worth knowing

  • A connect code lasts ten minutes. When the countdown reaches zero the card reads "Code expired. Please try again." Click Try again for a fresh one.
  • Three connect attempts per fifteen minutes. Past that, Brief answers "too many connect requests, try again later." Wait out the window and try again.
  • One number per account, one account per number. Connecting a different phone replaces the number already on your account. A number that is actively linked to another Brief account will not link to a second one, so disconnect it from the first account first.

Troubleshooting

Brief replies "To connect, visit your Brief settings page." Brief received something that looked like a code but could not match it. Usually that means a code that had already expired. Start a fresh connection from Settings → Connections and send the new code on its own.

You sent the message and nothing happened. Check that it went from the phone number you meant to link, and that the six-character code was the whole message. Brief reads a code only when nothing else is around it, and ignores a message that wraps one in other text. If the dialog still shows a countdown, the code is live and you can send it again.

The WhatsApp card shows an error. Brief could not load WhatsApp's status. Select Try again, or refresh the page. Brief checks the current state before it offers you an action, so it shows the error rather than a Connect button it cannot stand behind.

Disconnecting

  1. Go to Settings → Connections and find the WhatsApp card in the Accounts group. It shows your phone number and the date you connected.
  2. Click Manage. The WhatsApp account dialog opens.
  3. Click Disconnect, then confirm at Disconnect WhatsApp? Brief stops sending you briefings on WhatsApp.

You can reconnect later: WhatsApp returns to Connect another account. Blocking Brief in WhatsApp also stops delivery. Brief marks the connection opted out the next time a send is refused.

What Brief stores from the thread is covered by the same encryption and access posture as the rest of your account. Worth separating from that: the messages themselves travel over WhatsApp, so Meta carries and handles them on their own terms, the way any WhatsApp conversation does. Brief's guarantees cover Brief's copy rather than the transport. See Privacy and security for the detail, and Supported sources and what Brief syncs for the accounts Brief syncs from.