Putting your iMessage agent in the Dynamic Island

An iMessage-native AI agent can pair its text conversation with a Live Activity in Apple’s Dynamic Island to display persistent, glanceable state that would otherwise require users to scroll through messages. BodyBuddy, an AI health accountability coach built on Linq, illustrates the pattern by keeping calorie totals, meals, and streaks updated in the Dynamic Island while coaching continues in Messages. This works because Live Activities appear when their owning app is in the background; with Messages as the foreground app, BodyBuddy’s app can maintain the Island display during a chat, unlike a conventional in-app chat interface. The backend connects Linq inbound-message webhooks and outbound replies with ActivityKit updates sent through APNs, while mapping a user’s phone number to their app account and active Live Activity push token. Developers must ensure push content matches the widget’s declared state, authenticate webhooks, manage stale or ended activities, and keep compact Island views simple while reserving details for expanded views. The approach is most useful for agents that produce accumulating or changing information, such as nutrition totals, delivery estimates, balances, points, or checklists, rather than for one-off questions whose context is already clear in the message thread.

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