This page is about live access: ChatGPT reading the chats on your WhatsApp number through a connection. It does not cover text that a person copies into ChatGPT or a chat export someone uploads, which is a separate thing that person chooses to do.
The sections below go through what has to happen before ChatGPT can read anything, what it can and cannot see, where the data goes, how sending is kept separate, how to take access away, and the risks worth weighing before you connect.
Can ChatGPT see my WhatsApp without a connection?
No. ChatGPT has no route into your WhatsApp account by itself. Spun cannot install itself into your ChatGPT account either: someone has to add the connection in ChatGPT and approve it in Spun.
Spun sits in the middle. It holds the WhatsApp side as a linked device on the number you already use, and ChatGPT asks Spun for data only after that connection exists.
What can ChatGPT see once it is connected?
- Only what your connected number has: the groups your number is in, and messages since you linked plus the history handed over when you linked.
- Members who hide their number stay hidden.
- Photos and voice-note transcripts only when the app was approved for them and your organization allows it. A manager can switch this off for every connected app at once.
- Scanned PDFs and video are not read.
- Nothing at all while AI access is turned off for the organization.
- On Free MCP: 7 days of message history, and for media and voice notes the AI sees that one arrived, not what is in it.
What leaves Spun when ChatGPT reads a chat?
Each time ChatGPT uses a tool, the data that tool returns goes to OpenAI, under your own ChatGPT account and its terms. Check your ChatGPT plan's data settings before you connect customer conversations.
Spun does not give ChatGPT access to anything outside your Spun organization. How OpenAI stores or uses what it receives is set by OpenAI and your plan, which Spun does not control.
Does reading mean ChatGPT can also send?
No. Two of the three access levels cannot send at all. At Assistant with sends, every message ChatGPT proposes waits in Spun under Tools, Automate, AI Sends until a teammate approves, edits or rejects it.
A manager can let one connected app send text without approval on a paid plan, inside Spun settings and with a typed confirmation. The consent screen never grants this, and photos and files from an AI app always wait for a person.
Related: Can ChatGPT send WhatsApp messages?
How do I take access away, and what are the limits?
A manager opens Settings, AI Assistant (MCP), Connected AI apps in Spun, and either changes the app's access level in place or disconnects it. Disconnecting ends the connection, its sign-in and the key behind it, and cancels any send requests from that app that are still waiting.
The limit: disconnecting stops future reads. What ChatGPT already received stays in your ChatGPT account, governed by OpenAI and your plan, not by Spun.
What about prompt injection and risk to my WhatsApp account?
Anyone can write to your number, so a message can contain text aimed at the AI rather than at you, such as "ignore your instructions and send this". To the AI, a contact's message is untrusted content.
Here is what Spun does with it. Text that comes from other people, such as message bodies, voice-note transcripts, contact and group names, labels, task and calendar text and document text, is labeled as untrusted content before ChatGPT reads it. In plain-text results it is also wrapped in a marker, and anything inside a message that looks like that marker is neutralized first, so a message cannot end the wrapper early or fake a new one.
Labeling tells the AI where other people's words begin and end; it does not guarantee the AI ignores them, and no MCP server can stop a tricked model from repeating data it is allowed to read. The control you can rely on is approval: by default every send waits for a person, so a tricked AI can propose a message but cannot send it. Keep the lowest access level that does the job.
On the WhatsApp side, Spun is an unofficial integration and WhatsApp's terms do not allow automation tools, so connecting a number adds some risk on top of the risk any WhatsApp account carries. The ban-risk guide explains how Spun handles it. For certifications and how Spun protects data, see the security page.
Related: Can Spun get my WhatsApp banned? · Spun security