Let a bot answer for you and sort chats with tags
What it is
Connect a bot to your account, like an AI assistant or a booking system, and it answers customers for you in the chats you choose. Since May 2026 this is Chat Automation, open to everyone, Premium or not. Tags sort customers: each chat gets a colored label with its folder's name. Tags need Premium.
How to do it
- Pick a bot whose developer turned on Secretary Mode in @BotFather.
- Open Settings › Chat Automation (before May 2026: Settings › Telegram Business › Chatbots, Premium only).
- Enter the bot's link or @username.
- Under Chats the bot can access, choose All Private Chats Except... or Only Selected Chats.
- In Manage Messages, Manage Profile and other rights, switch off what it doesn't need.
- In chats it handles, Manage Bot at the top opens the bot.
- For tags: Settings › Chat Folders, make folders, turn on Show Folder Tags, pick colors.
Watch out
- The bot gets the messages of every chat you allow: pick one you trust.
- It replies only in private chats where the customer wrote in the last 24 hours.
- Rights can let it delete messages, change your name, bio, photo and username, handle gifts and Stars, and post stories.
- Tags come in seven colors; All Chats gets none.
- Premium allows 30 folders instead of 10.
With Gem
Gem can't be connected as a chatbot to your personal account and doesn't tag chats. Nearby: it answers from your knowledge in your project's chat in @gembot (`t.me/gembot?start=<name>`) and groups, and follows rules in plain words: when someone does X, Gem does Y.
Sources
- https://telegram.org/blog/ai-bot-revolution-11-new-features
- https://telegram.org/blog/group-calls-made-easy
- https://core.telegram.org/bots/features#business-bots
- https://core.telegram.org/api/folders