Meta rolls out its AI agent for WhatsApp Business worldwide

In short: Meta says its customer support AI bot for WhatsApp Business, called Meta Business Agent, is now available globally.

What happened

Meta announced that its AI agent (an automated helper that can chat with customers) is rolling out worldwide inside WhatsApp Business. Meta has been testing similar agents for nearly two years in countries including India and Mexico.

Meta says the agent can answer common customer questions, recommend products, book appointments, and sort sales leads. It can also hand a conversation to a human worker when needed, like a call center system that knows when to transfer you to a person.

Meta is also making the bot available inside Instagram direct messages. The company said it is testing a feature that can send businesses a daily briefing of messages that arrived overnight, plus basic insights.

Meta also outlined future plans. These include helping with market research, highlighting product features, managing calendars, and connecting to outside business tools such as Shopify, Zendesk, and Shopee.

Why it matters

Many small businesses already use WhatsApp as their main way to talk to customers. If an AI agent can handle routine questions, it could save time and help customers get faster replies, especially outside business hours.

Meta said it plans to charge businesses for using the agent. It will be included in some tiers of WhatsApp Business Premium, and large businesses will pay based on token usage. Tokens are small chunks of text (similar to paying by the word, but counted by the system).

Source: TechCrunch AI