Getting a Clone live isn't one big task — it's five small ones, in roughly this order: configure the Clone, give it Knowledge, connect a channel, attach the Clone to that channel, and switch it on. Miss any one and the Clone stays quiet. This checklist is the positive mirror image of My AI Clone isn't responding: do these five things and you won't be working down that troubleshooting ladder later. Each item below has a one-line action and a done when test, plus a link to the full guide if you want the detail.
Your account ships with one Clone pre-created on sign-up (named Expert 1 by default), so item 1 is about configuring a Clone, not creating one from nothing. The order below is the natural flow, not a hard requirement — you can connect a channel before you finish tuning the Clone if you prefer.
1. Create and configure a Clone
A Clone is the AI assistant that does the answering — it has an identity, a personality, knowledge it reads from, and skills. You configure it on the Clones page. At minimum, open the pre-created Expert 1 Clone (or click + Create new for another) and give it a Display name and any Instructions on the Identity tab so it speaks the way you want.
Open the Clones page
Click Clones in the left sidebar. You'll already see Expert 1 in the list — that's your first Clone, created automatically.
Set the Identity basics
On the Identity tab, set the Display name (what end users see), and optionally the Industry, Primary language and Instructions. The Identity tab uses explicit save — click Save changes when you're done.
TipIf you leave the Display name blank, the Clone falls back to your account name — which defaults to your email — so most accounts want to set this first.
Try it in the Playground
Use the Playground button at the top-right of the Clone to send a test message. It exercises the Clone on its own, before any channel is involved.
The Clone has a Display name set and answers a test message in the Playground. Full walkthrough: Creating and configuring an AI Clone.
2. Give it Knowledge
Knowledge is the factual ground truth your Clone answers from — your documents, web pages and media, grouped into a Knowledge library. Create a library on the Knowledge page, add at least one source to it, and wait for that source to finish processing. A library a Clone can actually use needs at least one source showing the Ready badge.
Create a library
Open Knowledge in the left sidebar and click + New library. Give it a name.
Add a source
Expand the library, open the Add Knowledge dropdown and pick a source type — Files & Folders for documents, Website to crawl pages, and so on.
Wait for Ready
Each source queues for processing; its status badge on the Sources sub-tab moves toward Ready. A source isn't fully available to the Clone until it reads Ready.
NoteProcessing time varies with file size and type, and IcloneU doesn't publish processing SLAs — short documents are typically ready within minutes; audio and video take longer. Watch the Activity sub-tab for live progress.
Attach the library to the Clone
On the Clone's Knowledge tab, select the library you just built so the Clone reads from it. (A Clone reads from one library at a time.)
Your library holds at least one source with the Ready badge, and that library is selected on the Clone's Knowledge tab. Start here: What is the Knowledge Library? and Adding documents and files.
3. Connect a channel
A Clone can't reach your audience until you connect a channel — WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube and Email (web chat is added separately, by embedding a snippet on your site — see Embed web chat). You add a provider channel from the Connections page; most of the work is the third-party authentication step, which is different per channel.
Open Connections
Click Connections in the left sidebar.
Start a new connection
Click New connection and pick the channel you want from the dropdown — WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube or Email.
Complete the channel's auth flow
Each channel routes you into its own sign-in — Meta OAuth for WhatsApp / Facebook / Instagram, Google OAuth for YouTube, a bot-token dialog for Telegram, a server-credentials form for Email. Follow it through and you'll land back on the Connections page.
4. Attach the Clone to that connection
Connecting a channel and attaching a Clone are two separate steps, and this is the one most easily missed. A Connection only answers through the Clone attached to it in its settings panel. The Clone dropdown there — described as "The clone that will reply on behalf of this integration" — has no "none" option, but a Connection can still end up with no Clone attached if you close the post-connect panel without saving.
Open the Connection's settings panel
On Connections, select the channel's row and click Settings (the gear button). The Account options panel opens — the same one that appears right after you connect.
Pick the Clone
In the Clone dropdown, select the Clone that should answer on this channel.
Save
Click Save. This is the step that makes the attachment stick — closing the panel with Cancel discards any auto-selected Clone and leaves the Connection with none.
Heads upThe fresh-connect trap: right after you connect, the Clone dropdown may come pre-filled, but the selection only persists if you click Save. If a newly connected channel never answers anything, reopen Settings and confirm a Clone is actually selected and saved.
The Connection's Clone dropdown shows the Clone you expect — not an empty field — and you've clicked Save. Full guide: Assigning a Clone to a platform.
5. Enable it and check response authorizations
Last, make sure the Connection is switched on — and understand one nuance about how replies go out. Every Connection has an Enabled toggle: while it's off, incoming messages and comments for that account are ignored. With it on, the Clone handles new traffic.
Turn on Enabled
In the Connection's Account options panel, make sure the Enabled toggle is on, then Save. Its own description says it plainly: "When off, incoming messages and comments for this account are ignored. Tokens are kept so you can re-enable without reconnecting."
Review response authorizations (comment channels)
On comment channels — Facebook, Instagram and YouTube post comments — the Response authorizations required for section decides which reply types go out on their own. Any category you tick is held for your authorization instead of being auto-sent; unticked categories post automatically. If you want comments to go out without you, leave the categories you trust unticked.
Direct messages — Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram DMs — always auto-reply by design, regardless of the response-authorization toggles (the section still renders on a DM Connection's panel, but it has no effect there). So held authorizations only ever affect a comments section, never a DM inbox.
The Connection's Enabled toggle is on, and — for comment channels — the categories you want auto-sent are left unticked under Response authorizations required for. More on staying in the loop: Reviewing and editing AI responses.
All five at a glance
The whole checklist in one place — the action and the test for each item:
| # | Do this | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Configure a Clone on the Clones page (Display name + Instructions) | It answers a test message in the Playground |
| 2 | Build a Knowledge library and add a source; attach it to the Clone | At least one source shows the Ready badge |
| 3 | Connect a channel on the Connections page | The Connection appears with an active status |
| 4 | Attach the Clone in the Connection's settings panel | The Clone dropdown is set and Saved |
| 5 | Enable the Connection; check response authorizations | Enabled is on; comment categories set as you want |
Still silent after all five? That's exactly what My AI Clone isn't responding is for — it walks the same chain in reverse to find the break, including units (every reply is paid for in units) and channel-side faults this checklist doesn't cover.
Frequently asked
Roughly, but it's not enforced. The natural flow is Clone → Knowledge → connect → attach → enable, because each step builds on the last — you can't attach a Clone to a Connection that doesn't exist yet. But you can connect a channel before you've finished tuning the Clone, or add Knowledge after connecting. The five things just all need to be true before the Clone replies on a channel.
The two most common gaps aren't on this checklist because they're not setup steps: units (every Clone reply is paid for in units, and at a zero balance the Clone stops replying on every channel at once) and channel-side delivery (a broken webhook or expired authorization means the message never reaches IcloneU). Both are covered in My AI Clone isn't responding.
Not strictly — a Clone can answer from its Instructions and general knowledge without a library attached. But a Knowledge library is what grounds its replies in your business facts rather than generic AI knowledge, so it's on the checklist as the difference between a Clone that sounds plausible and one that's actually right about you.
Yes. A single Clone can be attached to many Connections at once — WhatsApp, Instagram and Email all answered by the same Clone, applying the same personality and Knowledge everywhere. You repeat item 4 (attach) and item 5 (enable) for each Connection, but you only configure the Clone once. See Assigning a Clone to a platform.
Last updated June 12, 2026 · Getting Started
