AI Telegram group monitoring
Pingfinch
Pingfinch is a Telegram bot that watches the public groups and channels you choose and sends you messages from people looking for your service. You describe what to find in plain words, and AI checks every new message against that description. I came up with the product and build all of it myself, from the bot to a website in ten languages.
Why I built Pingfinch
Tradespeople, drivers, estate agents and tutors often find clients in local Telegram groups. A request like “can anyone recommend a driver to the airport?” gets lost among ads for the same services, job posts and chatter, and nobody can read dozens of groups all day.
Keyword search doesn’t help much: a client’s request and a provider’s ad use the same words. What matters is who is writing and what they want. I wanted to find out whether AI could pick out these requests from a description people write in their own words.
How Pingfinch works
Everything is set up in the @PingFinchBot bot. The first notifications are free; after that you pay for notifications about matching messages, not for the number of groups.
Sources
You add public groups and channels by @username or t.me link. The bot doesn’t accept private invite links.
Instruction
You describe in plain words which messages you want and which to skip, for example “people looking for a driver, not drivers offering rides.”
Filtering
Short messages and obvious ads are dropped right away. AI checks the rest against your instruction.
Notification
You get the reason for the match and a link to the message in Telegram. If a link can’t be built, the bot sends the beginning of the text.
My contribution
I came up with the product and develop it on my own with AI agents: I decide who it’s for and what it promises, design the architecture, and write and review the code.
The bot is written in Python: it reads messages through Telethon, stores data in Supabase and uses Gemini for matching. Subscriptions, plans and support run in the same bot. The React website serves ready-made HTML in ten languages, so search engines can read every page without JavaScript. I prepare the site’s articles through my own editorial process and check every product claim against the code.
What I learned
Words don’t reveal intent
“Need an airport transfer” and “I do airport transfers” share almost all their words. So matching relies on a description of who is looking for what, not on a keyword list. AI can still get it wrong, and the product says so plainly.
Failures shouldn’t lose messages
The classifier or Telegram can be unavailable, and the process restarts. Received messages and notifications are kept in queues and retried while they are still relevant.
Promise only what’s verified
A notification is a request someone posted, not a client. The site and the bot state that monitoring covers the sources you choose, not all of Telegram, and that AI can miss messages.
Each language needs its own examples
Articles in each language are built on their own examples and terms. An estate agent in Dubai and a tutor in Singapore need different scenarios, not one translated text.
A matching example
An illustrative example, not a customer testimonial. A driver’s instruction:
Messages from people looking for a driver or an airport transfer. Skip ads from transport companies and job posts.
- Match
- Can anyone recommend a driver to the airport tomorrow? Three of us with luggage.
- Skipped
- Airport transfers every day. Message me for prices.
Both messages are about transfers, but the first comes from a client and the second from a provider. The notification about the first includes the reason for the match and a link to the message. Whether to reply is up to the user.
Questions about Pingfinch
Does Pingfinch search all of Telegram?
No. The bot only watches the public groups and channels you add. It doesn’t find new communities for you.
How accurate is the matching?
Accuracy hasn’t been measured and isn’t promised: AI can miss a relevant message or send an irrelevant one. That’s why each notification includes the reason and a link, so you can check the original before replying.
Does the bot reply to clients?
No. Pingfinch only sends you a notification. You decide whether and how to reply to the author.
How much does it cost?
The first notifications are free. After that you choose a plan by the number of notifications a month; current prices are on the Pingfinch website.
Try Pingfinch
The Pingfinch website explains how monitoring works and has guides on finding requests on Telegram. You can start right away in the bot.