Every sale I've made from Instagram started the same way. Someone commented, someone DM'd, someone asked a question. The problem is that questions arrive at 2am, in bursts of fifty, and the people asking expect an answer in minutes. Miss that window and they buy from whoever answered first.
This setup fixes that. Manychat sits between Instagram and you. It is the tool almost every big creator uses to run their DMs, it's an official Meta partner, and it works through Instagram's own messaging API, so nothing about it is against the rules. Plug ChatGPT into it and the conversation itself gets handled: the question answered, the right product suggested, the link sent, the hesitation dealt with, all inside the DM.
The plan · 4 steps
How The Pieces Fit
Instagram sends the message to Manychat. Manychat runs your automation. One block in that automation sends the person's message plus your instructions to ChatGPT through your own OpenAI key. ChatGPT writes the reply, Manychat sends it back into the DM. The person never leaves Instagram and never sees a bot interface.
What you can do with it
Get Manychat (One Month Of Pro Free)
You need a Manychat account on the Pro plan, because ChatGPT and the other integrations live in Pro. Sign up through my creator link and use the code below for a free month of Pro. The Free plan doesn't include the ChatGPT integration, so the code matters for this guide.
Get Manychat Pro free for a month. Go to manychat.com/creators and create your account. Upgrade to Pro when you're ready.
Create your account. Open the Manychat creators page and click the sign-up button. You'll sign in with your Facebook or Instagram login, the same way you'd connect any Meta tool.
Connect Instagram. Your Instagram needs to be a Business or Creator account (free switch in Instagram Settings, then Account type). In Manychat, go to Settings, then under Channels click Instagram and connect. Log in when asked and allow the message permissions. Without message access Manychat can't read or send DMs, which is the whole point.
Upgrade to Pro. In Settings, under Billing, open Subscriptions and pick Pro. You'll see the PRO badge next to your name in the top left when it's active.
Rick's tip
Already on Manychat Free? The same code works on the upgrade. Already on Pro? Skip this part, you're set.
Get Your OpenAI API Key
The video says "connect your ChatGPT account." What you're actually connecting is an OpenAI API key. It's separate from a ChatGPT Plus subscription: the key is billed by usage, in cents, and works even if you never pay for ChatGPT itself.
Open the API keys page. Go to platform.openai.com and sign in with your ChatGPT login. In the left sidebar click API Keys. If you've never been here, it will ask you to create an organization and verify a phone number. Two minutes.
Create the key. Click + Create new secret key in the top right. Name it something like "Manychat DMs," leave permissions on All, and click Create. Copy the key that starts with sk- immediately. This is the only time OpenAI shows it. Close the window without copying and you'll need to make a new one.
Add a few dollars of credit. In the sidebar click Settings, then Billing, and add credit (five or ten dollars is plenty to start). New accounts have no balance, and an empty balance is the number one reason the ChatGPT block silently returns nothing.
A DM reply is a few hundred tokens. On the models Manychat offers, that works out to well under a cent per reply on the mini models and low single-digit cents on the big ones. A thousand conversations a month is a coffee, not a bill. Set a monthly spend limit under Billing so a runaway flow can never surprise you.
Treat the key like a password. Never paste it in a DM, a comment, a screenshot or a shared doc. If it ever leaks, go back to API Keys, revoke it, and make a new one. Manychat only needs it entered once.
Connect It Inside Manychat
I opened the live Manychat builder to check this. The click path from the video is right.
Settings, then Integrations. In the left sidebar click Settings. In the settings menu scroll down to the Extensions section and click Integrations. You'll see cards for TikTok Ads, Google Sheets, Hotmart and more. Scroll until you see the ChatGPT logo.
Paste the key. On the ChatGPT card, paste your sk- key into the API Secret field and click Connect ChatGPT Account. When it works, the card shows a ChatGPT Account Name with a Disconnect button. That's the whole connection.
Right under ChatGPT on the same page are cards for Claude and DeepSeek (both marked beta). Same idea, an API key from that company. Everything in this guide works the same way with Claude's key if that's the model you prefer for writing.
Rick's tip
Troubleshooting. "Invalid key" means you copied a partial key, or it was revoked, so make a fresh one. If it connects but replies come back empty, your OpenAI balance is zero, add credit. If you can't find the ChatGPT card at all, you're on the Free plan, and integrations need Pro.
Build The Automation
This is the part the video compresses into one sentence. Here is every click, checked in the builder. Total time, about ten minutes.
New automation, blank canvas. Click Automation in the left sidebar, then + New Automation (top right). In the templates window click Start From Scratch and choose Start from a blank canvas. Rename "Untitled" to something like "AI DM assistant" using the pencil icon.
Pick the trigger. Click + New Trigger. Under Instagram choose Instagram Message ("User sends a message") and set it to fire on any message, or use keywords if you only want AI on certain topics. For the "handles the whole conversation" effect, use the Default Reply instead: Automation, then Basic, then Default Reply, set to Every time. Default Reply catches any DM that didn't match another automation, so your keyword flows keep working and the AI takes everything else.
Add the ChatGPT block. Click Choose first step, then Actions. In the actions panel click + Action, pick ChatGPT in the left list, and choose Make request. A window called Edit ChatGPT Actions opens with four things to fill in.
Click Save.
Send the reply. Click Choose Next Step, then Instagram. In the message block, type {{gpt_reply}} (or click the field picker and choose your gpt_reply custom field). That's the whole message. Now click Set Live in the top right.
Rick's tip
Test it from a friend's phone or a second account and DM your page a real question. If you get a reply in a few seconds, you're live.
The System Prompt That Sells
The system prompt is the only part of this that's yours. It's the difference between a bot that says "Great question!" and a DM assistant people buy from. I tested it against real DM situations (shipping, an angry order complaint, a pregnancy question, a one-word "price?") and tuned it until it handled all of them. Fill in the brackets.
Why each part is there. Two to four sentences keeps you under Instagram's 1,000-character limit and stops the wall of text that screams bot. "Only use the products listed here" stops invented bundles. "Say [name] will confirm" gives it a way out instead of a guess. The complaint rule stops selling and gets the order number. The block only sees the latest message, so each reply reads as the first one, and the memory trick below fixes that.
Comments To DMs To Sales
The promise is that a comment on your post turns into a sale. That takes two automations working together: one that catches the comment and opens the DM, and the AI assistant that takes over once the person replies.
The comment catcher. New automation, trigger Post or Reel Comments. Pick the post (or all posts), set the keyword (or any comment), and send a short DM: "Hey! Saw your comment. Here's the link. Want help picking the right one?" Keep it human and end with a question.
The AI takes over. When the person answers that question, their DM no longer matches a keyword, so it hits your Default Reply automation, the one with the ChatGPT block. From here the AI answers, recommends and sends links until they buy or ask for you.
Keywords first, AI second. Keep your keyword automations (your lead magnet words, your "link" replies) as separate automations. Manychat matches those first. The AI only sees what's left, which is exactly the open-ended questions it's good at. Don't put the AI on the keyword itself or people who type "sales" to get a guide will get a sales pitch instead of the guide.
Turn answers into data. Before the ChatGPT block, add an Actions step with Add Tag ("AI conversation") and after it, if the reply included a product link, tag "link sent." Now Contacts filters show you exactly who the AI is talking to and who's warm. Add Set User Field to capture an email the person typed, or a Kit or Mailchimp action to push them to your list.
Rick's tip
Add a Condition step before the AI. If the contact has the tag "customer," send them to a support-flavored prompt instead of the sales one. Same setup, different system prompt, and customers stop getting pitched things they already own.
Memory, Handoffs, And The AI Step
Giving it memory. The ChatGPT block is stateless: each run only gets the latest message. For most DM sales that's fine. When you want it to remember the thread, create a text custom field called chat_history. In the system prompt add a line: "Conversation so far: {{chat_history}}" using the field button in the prompt box. After the reply block, add a Set User Field action that sets chat_history to {{chat_history}} User: {{Last Text Input}} You: {{gpt_reply}}. Now every run sees the thread.
Long histories mean long prompts, which cost more and can push past the 120-second timeout. Add a Smart Delay or a Condition that clears chat_history after 24 hours of silence.
The human handoff. The prompt already tells ChatGPT to say "Let me get [name] to jump in." Make that real: add a Condition after the reply, "gpt_reply contains 'jump in'," and on the true branch use the Inbox actions to assign the conversation to yourself and mark it open, plus Add Tag "needs human." You get the ones that matter, the bot gets the rest.
The native option: AI Step. Manychat also has its own AI, no key needed. When you click Choose Next Step, the option is AI Step ("Let AI handle conversations"). It has two boxes, Tell AI what to do (the goal) and Give AI context (your info), then a Generate button. It runs the whole back and forth on its own, collects data, and can hand off. It needs the Manychat AI add-on on your plan.
My take: start with the ChatGPT block. It's what the video shows, it costs cents, and the system prompt gives you real control over how you sound. Try AI Step when you want the form-filling style conversations without wiring anything.
Five Prompts For Five Jobs
Swap the "Your job" paragraph in the main prompt for one of these.
The lead qualifier
The product matcher
The booking assistant
The lead magnet follow-up
The support desk
Mistakes That Break The Setup
The 24-hour rule: Instagram lets automations reply to a person for 24 hours after their last message. Inside that window the AI can go back and forth freely. After it closes, you can't push a message until they write again. Design the conversation to get to the link or the question inside one session, and use the comment automation to reopen the window.
Do This Today
Get Manychat at manychat.com/creators, create your key, paste the system prompt with your three products filled in, and set it live. Then post something with a question in the caption and watch the DMs answer themselves. If you still need the posts that start those conversations, my go viral with Claude guide and the Instagram carousel generator cover the content side.