Meta bolsters its WhatsApp Business offering with AI chatbots, others

Businesses will be able to leverage Meta's AI systems to deliver the right message to the right person on WhatsApp, says Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook parent Meta wants to put its latest artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, including AI agents, in the hands of every small business owner to help them run and scale their operations more efficiently.

On June 6, Meta introduced the ability for small businesses that are using the WhatsApp Business app to activate an AI agent that can act on their behalf, answer questions and provide the necessary support to their customers, thereby helping business owners save a "lot of time and resources" which they can direct towards running their businesses.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the firm will be testing this feature with a select number of English language businesses in India and Singapore, with plans to expand to businesses in Brazil soon.

The company said it will be training these AI agents to respond to the most popular questions businesses receive on WhatsApp, so they can quickly help customers find the answers they are looking for. Meta said it will also make it very clear to customers that they're talking to an AI in such interactions.

Meta is testing an AI assistant in the WhatsApp Business app that will help businesses create engaging 'click-to-WhatsApp' ads

Meta has rolled out a general purpose AI assistant Meta AI that has been rolled out across its suite of products, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger to consumers across several countries. The assistant is powered by its latest large language model Llama 3.

"Our vision is not just to build a single AI assistant, but also to enable lots of different AIs that can serve different purposes, including those for businesses. Any business should be able to quickly stand up an agent that can talk to your customers, provide support, and facilitate commerce," Zuckerberg said in his keynote speech at Conversations, the company's annual business messaging event.

Zuckerberg said businesses will also be able to leverage Meta's AI systems to deliver the right message to the right person on WhatsApp. They can use the Ads Manager product to deliver messages to the customers who are most likely to be interested in them, with the company's AI systems recommending the right subset of recipients.

This will result in people seeing more relevant messages and businesses seeing better ROI (return-on-investment), Zuckerberg said. The feature is being rolled out across countries like Mexico and Indonesia, with plans to expand to more nations along the year.

Meta is also testing a new intelligent AI assistant in the WhatsApp Business app that will help businesses create engaging 'click-to-WhatsApp' ads which show up on Facebook and Instagram feeds and drive people to a chat on WhatsApp.

Read: Meta to spend billions more on AI; CEO Mark Zuckerberg vows long-term gains

'Personal ad agency'

In a media briefing, Nikila Srinivasan, vice-president of business messaging at Meta, pitched this feature as a personal ad agency for business owners that sits within the app. The assistant can also answer questions on using certain features or functionalities, she said.

Over time, the assistant is also expected to provide insights to people on how to run their business more efficiently.

These developments come as Meta scouts for new ways to accelerate monetisation from WhatsApp, its most expensive acquisition to date. WhatsAp is currently the world's most popular messaging app with over 2 billion daily active users across the world, with India being its biggest market with over 500 million users.

Rather than relying on traditional digital advertising, Meta chose to monetise its messaging app through business messaging, an area that has become increasingly important for the company in recent years.

It charges businesses to send various types of messages to their customers and provides an API platform, targeted at medium-to-large businesses and enterprises, besides the click-to-WhatsApp ads.

Read: Meta's latest generative AI features make it easier for advertisers to create ads

Paid verification

The growing adoption of WhatsApp's business offerings however has also resulted in a significant rise in people receiving unsolicited promotional messages or spam messages on the app.

Srinivasan said the new AI tools will likely lead to better optimisation of marketing messages, which will help people get only those messages from businesses that they find useful.

"We hear from businesses that they are not going to achieve their business outcomes by spamming people either. They want to be able to reach people who are going to engage with their messages, and who want to actually receive them. So, for us, continuing to invest in all of the things that are going to make the user experience top notch in WhatsApp continues to be a huge priority," she said.

Meta said it is also introducing the ability to call larger businesses on WhatsApp with a single tap, for situations that require a deeper conversation such as booking a complicated travel request or discussing opening a new account with a bank. This feature is currently being tested with a handful of businesses with plans to expand to more businesses in the coming months.

The company is also officially rolling out its paid verification service, Meta Verified, to users of WhatsApp Business app in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia. This rollout comes about eight months after it was first announced in September 2023.

Last month, Meta launched new paid subscription tiers for businesses to better serve a wider range of business needs.

The company said it determines plan eligibility for each business profile based on a range of measures including the business activity on its apps and volume of interactions with consumers on its platform, including profile visits, post engagement, and number of message conversations among others.

In India, the subscription tiers for businesses start at Rs 639 per month.