WhatsApp Business to Soon Get AI Chatbot That Can Make Product Recommendations

WhatsApp Business users will soon get to use two new features, Meta announced on Tuesday. The company unveiled new features for businesses at its global Conversations conference in Miami. The first feature is aimed at larger businesses that will soon be able to receive and make voice calls to customers. The second feature brings an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot dubbed Business AI, which can automatically share product recommendations with customers to push sales. Notably, both features will be shipped in the coming weeks.

WhatsApp Business Is Getting Two New Features

In a newsroom post, the social media giant highlighted that it now intends to streamline how businesses create and manage marketing campaigns across all Meta platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. This can be accessed by businesses via Ads Manager.

WhatsApp Business is streamlining its platform by eliminating separate experiences for businesses of different sizes. All setup and workflows will now be unified in a single, centralised location within Ads Manager. The company said businesses can upload their subscriber list after being onboarded and either select marketing messages manually, as an additional placement, or use Advantage+, and Meta's AI models will automatically optimise budgets for them to provide maximised performance.

Coming to the two new features, WhatsApp Business users will soon get to use a new chatbot dubbed Business AI. It can create personalised product recommendations to customers in an attempt to bolster sales. Additionally, it can also follow up with customers, answer their questions, or provide updates within the WhatsApp chat. This feature will first be rolled out to select businesses in Mexico.

Earlier, only smaller businesses had the option to receive voice calls from customers via WhatsApp's Business console. Now, the feature is being expanded to larger businesses as well. They can both receive a call from customers when they indicate they want to speak to someone live, or call a customer directly after they have suggested that they would like to speak with a representative.

WhatsApp Business will also soon add support for voice messages and video calls for specific use cases (for instance, video calls will be available for telehealth appointments). Meta said the expansion of voice support will eventually pave the way for AI-enabled voice support. However, the company did not provide any timeline for the feature.