A Telegram bot is one of the most practical ways to deploy an AI assistant — your users already have Telegram, there's no app to install, and the Bot API is simple. This guide builds a fully functional AI bot with python-telegram-bot and the Claude API , including commands, inline keyboards, conversation history, error handling, and systemd deployment. Prerequisites Python 3.10+ Telegram Bot Token from @botfather Anthropic API key ( ANTHROPIC_API_KEY ) Step 1: Create the Bot Open Telegram, find