What is a webhook? A plain-English explanation

Think of the difference between phoning the courier every hour to ask where your parcel is and receiving a message when it arrives. Asking over and over is periodic checking; the message is the webhook. Technically, it is a web address to which a service sends the details of an event as soon as it happens.

Webhooks are the glue in many automations, including ones that use AI: the online shop signals that an order has arrived, the webhook starts a workflow that checks the address, prepares the confirmation and updates the stock. They do need protecting, though: anyone who knows the address could send fake notifications, so you use signatures and secret keys.

An example in a small business

A wine shop sells online and in the shop. Every time an order comes in on the website, a webhook notifies the stock system, which takes the bottle off the inventory. Before, Davide updated it at the end of the day, and sometimes the last bottle was sold twice. Now the stock count is right in real time.

The most common mistakes

• Not checking that the notification really comes from the right service, which leaves the door open to fake data.
• Not handling duplicate notifications: the same event can arrive more than once.
• Not noticing when webhooks stop arriving, because nobody is checking.

Why it matters to you

When you evaluate software, ask whether it offers webhooks. If it does, you will be able to connect it to your other tools without copy-pasting and without waiting.

All the AI terms explained simply are in the glossary.