Meta The AI agent for WhatsApp Business is now available worldwide

For years, WhatsApp has served as a communication layer for businesses of all sizes around the world. Meta is now injecting AI into that layer to transform WhatsApp into a viable workflow software for small and medium-sized businesses.

The company said on Wednesday that its customer support AI bot, now known as Meta Business Agent, will be available globally within WhatsApp. The launch comes as Meta has spent nearly two years testing WhatsApp Business's AI agent to support customers in countries such as India and Mexico.

Meta said AI agents can answer customer questions, recommend products, schedule appointments, qualify sales leads, and reroute queries to humans when necessary. The company is also making the bot available within Instagram DMs.

Meta said it is testing ways for Business Agent to provide daily briefings and provide insights into chats that have occurred throughout the night. The company is testing the feature for select accounts in WhatsApp Business, Instagram Pro, Messenger, and Meta Business Suite.

The company said it is working to add features such as connecting tools to conduct market research, highlight product features, manage user calendars and extract competitive insights.

Meta said it's also working to ensure agents can display your business when you search for it or share contact information in chat. We're also building a platform that allows large companies to create custom agents that can connect to systems like Shopify, Zendesk, and Shopee.

Meta plans to charge businesses a fee by including this AI agent in some tiers of their WhatsApp Business Premium subscription. The company noted that large companies will pay agent fees based on the number of tokens they use.

This is critical for WhatsApp, which has relied on businesses paying for messaging and WhatsApp click-through ads.