Whereby provides the simplest way to do video calls. It’s like Zoom, but you just click a link and it opens the browser. Whereby also lets companies build video calls directly into their own websites or apps so it feels like part of the service rather than a separate tool.
Assistants lets Whereby customers connect additional tools inside live video calls to unlock real-time insights, automate tasks, and support more intelligent conversation. They join a session as a silent participant, stay out of the way, and surface value at the moment it’s needed.
I led design across the experience: how builders configure an assistant, how they show up in-session, and how teams control and trust them.
In order to establish an MVP, I built an early prototype exploring ideas like presence, control and functionality.
Feedback from both internal stakeholders and a set of customers helped draw a clear line between MVP and non-MVP.
A key design decision was to put trust first. Instead of working invisibly in the background, Assistants show up in the room. They have a name, avatar, and clear purpose so participants understand who’s present and why.
This emphasis on transparency made the room header important. It became the anchor communicating both human and non-human participation.
Another key contributor to trust was a consent dialog. AI Adoption, specifically in Telehealth, can be challenging and gently reminding clinicians to ensure their visitors are aware and happy with the use of an assistant builds confidence to both the Telehealth provider and their clinician’s workflow.
Trust isn’t just about showing assistants. It’s about making their presence predictable over time.
So I explored what happens when assistants become normal, when customers have several, and when the room header needs to respond to that. I landed on a pattern that stays quiet when it can be and explicit when it needs to be.
Assistants starts in a customer's dashboard. This is where builders assign the components of our trust model. A name, avatar and description.
We intentionally split configuration into three steps: Profile, Connection, Settings. This keeps the setup feeling light whilst giving Whereby room for scale, as customers needs become more clear.
A Closed Beta did what we needed it to do. Some of our biggest customers enabled assistants in real sessions and the feedback was strong. It validated the direction and helped refine decisions shown here.
That said, we realised the natural limitation of a platform feature: getting to value takes real effort on the customer side. Creating an assistant isn’t quick, and some customers didn’t fully unlock the value because they couldn’t justify the engineering time yet.
Whilst this was expected the gap supported a relevant question: how might we make it easier for customers to get to their first “it worked” moment? Something we intend to explore in the future.
