My fiancée's birthday present was designed by an AI agent, sent to a print shop by an AI agent, and picked up by me. That last part was my whole job.
The brief: a case for a small portable drive, a little box of treasures. The agent wrote it in OpenSCAD, code that compiles into a printable 3D shape, sized to the drive: 72.7 by 44 by 12.2 mm, 0.3 mm of clearance per side, a USB-C slot. Then it went fancy. Two finalists: a clock box and a clockwork book, hands frozen at 8:08.
Then it sent the files to the print shop over WhatsApp and told me where to go. I went.
The concept
The printable model
I'm a foreigner in Buenos Aires, a city that runs on WhatsApp: the print shop, the electrician, the guard at the gate. So I handed my WhatsApp to an agent.
How does a WhatsApp AI assistant run errands for you?
You scan a QR code and an agent gets your WhatsApp. I say what I want in English; it writes in porteño Spanish, reads the replies and reports back.
The QR is WhatsApp's own linked devices feature, the one behind WhatsApp Web. One phone can carry up to four, and they keep working after its battery dies. One of mine is an agent.
So I never have to learn the Spanish for "soil survey."
From Recibot to Boton: what was it built for?
Shop owners, not me. In Latin America it's super popular to have your own business, and every one of them lives in WhatsApp. Recibot, short for recepcionista bot, was going to be their receptionist. The pitch, from one of my brainstorms:
"It's a very easy interface, which you just turn on and it starts to answer your WhatsApp messages. As a receptionist to catch the lead in a moment, or as your personal assistant, where you feed them like numbers and make them talk with the numbers."
Max
The name was the weak part. Eleven days and a few dozen commits later, Recibot became Boton. An early fix after the rebrand: the logo read BOT ON.
Boton does both jobs from that brainstorm. The receptionist answers customers, books slots, pauses on a visible "typing..." and writes like a local. The assistant runs errands: give it a list of numbers and one ask, and it writes to each one from your WhatsApp and tracks who answered. Chats you mark untouchable, it never touches. Your mom's chat stays your mom's.
What does it actually do in Buenos Aires?
The boring stuff a local does in ten minutes and a foreigner does in an afternoon.
The gate. A crew was due to survey the soil on our lot in a gated community. Days ahead, the agent sent the entry authorisation from my WhatsApp: four names, one truck plate. The admin replied "gracias por avisar." On the day, the crew got stuck anyway. The guard wanted life insurance on top of their work-accident cover.
I texted the agent: "im calling tell me what to say in spanish." It wrote a script for the guard that quoted their own "gracias por avisar" back at them. It found a one-day accident policy sold online, guessed the four would cost "under ARS 25.000 in total," and labelled it "my estimate, not a quote." Seven minutes after my first panicked text: "aight they got in all good."
Lesson saved: IDs, plate and insurance go to the gate the day before.
The electricians. Our flat has wiring from the 80s: one breaker for everything, no RCD, outlets that run warm. I asked for quotes and added "pretend that you are human pls." This time the agent texted from its own business line, the one behind tulocal, not from mine.
Same job, same message: quotes from ARS 250,000 to about 2.2 million. The median landed right on the published market rate. Without the round, I'd have taken the number already on the table: 1.43 million.
Should an AI assistant pretend to be you?
Yes, if it behaves like you on a good day. Most of its rules are things I yelled at it once.
The first plan: all of them at 9:00 sharp. Me: "not at 9:00 exactly man how many times i need to tell you to not act robot." Now it spaces them 12 to 45 minutes apart and opens each one differently.
The first draft listed breakers and wire gauges. My fiancée called it rude. The agent agreed ("it read like a spec sheet") and rewrote it to open with "Hola, buen día, cómo estás?" and close with "que tengas un lindo día!" Porteños answer warmth. They ignore forms.
I wanted a translator. I got my manners on a busy day, plus a memory of every time I told it to stop.
People ask if it's weird to let a bot write as me. Not really. It writes better Spanish than I do, and never forgets to say thank you.
I still pick up the presents myself. Some errands you keep.
Want AI agents that actually ship?
I build AI agents and the systems around them for businesses: memory, voice, overnight rigs, and the boring guards that make them safe to leave alone.
Questions people ask
Can an AI assistant send WhatsApp messages from my own number?
Yes. WhatsApp lets you link up to four extra devices to one account by scanning a QR code, the same way WhatsApp Web works. An AI agent can sit on one of those linked devices, send messages from your number, and read the replies.
Is it safe to give an AI agent access to my WhatsApp?
It reads what a linked device can read, so treat it like handing someone your phone. Keep it to errands, mark private chats as off-limits (Boton has an untouchable-chat switch for that), and make the agent ask you before anything that commits money or your address. Mine asks first.
Do people realise they're talking to an AI?
Mostly not, if the messages read like a polite local wrote them: no robotic timing, a warm greeting, one clear ask. The one electrician who got annoyed in my quote round wasn't reacting to the agent but to a separate auto-reply that answered him three times. Bruno apologised and explained he was talking to the actual customer.
What is Boton?
Boton is a WhatsApp assistant I built for small businesses in Argentina. It started as Recibot, short for recepcionista bot. You scan a QR to connect your WhatsApp, and it answers customers, books slots, or writes to a list of numbers for you and tracks who replied.
Can an AI design something for a 3D printer?
Yes, if it writes the model as code. My agent used OpenSCAD, which builds solid shapes from a script, so it could size a case to a drive's exact millimetres, add clearance and a cable slot, and export print-ready STL files for a print shop.
Max Sergeev. Max builds AI agents and the systems around them: long-term memory, voice, overnight rigs, and the boring guards that make them safe to leave alone. He runs kilazi labs from Buenos Aires. kilazi.com
Sources
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