Meta Enhances WhatsApp Business with AI-Powered Features and Voice Calling

Meta adds business voice calling to WhatsApp, explores AI-powered product reccomendations | TechCrunch

WhatsApp is adding more AI features to its business suite. The company on Tuesday announced it's introducing the ability for large businesses to reach customers through voice calls, which will allow the app to explore the use of AI-powered voice agents. The company is also looking into using AI to recommend products to users. WhatsApp Business, which has over 200 million monthly users, has been a notable revenue driver for Meta, as its executives noted in the last few quarterly earnings calls. The company earns money through its click-to-WhatsApp ads and charges merchants for messaging features on the platform. While the company doesn't charge for its AI features at the moment, there is a possibility that it could put a price tag on that after it achieves scale. Today, small business accounts can already chat with customers over voice on WhatsApp, but larger business accounts haven't yet had the ability. In the next few weeks, larger businesses will be able to access this feature via the API. This will allow customers to place voice calls to businesses and allow businesses to call back customers. (The latter wasn't available during earlier tests last year, but is now.) WhatsApp said it will soon add a way for customers to send and receive voice messages from businesses, too. By enabling voice pipelines, companies could set up an AI-enabled voice agent through a startup like Vapi, ElevenLabs, Coval, or Phonic to run their customer service over WhatsApp. In addition, an AI-powered chat-based customer support and outreach feature that began testing last year is now being expanded to more merchants in Mexico. In addition, WhatsApp is looking to AI to power product recommendations on a merchant's site. Today, there are multiple venture-backed startups that are using AI to fuel personalized product suggestions for sellers. Similarly, Meta said after an initial recommendation or conversation, its AI could answer follow-up questions or provide updates via WhatsApp. The updates are rolling out starting today to business customers with the general release and will reach the wider user base over the coming weeks.

WhatsApp will now let big businesses voice call you directly, also adds more AI agents

AI agents suggest chat follow-ups and product recommendations A series of new WhatsApp updates will make it even easier for businesses to communicate with their customers directly on the platform with the launch of voice calling features. At its global Conversations conference, the company announced firms using the WhatsApp Business Platform will now be able to use more of the features everyday users have on the messaging platform, including receiving and making voice calls with customers and even sending and receiving voice messages. Furthering this, customer service teams operating across sectors like remote healthcare can also make video calls on the platform in what could be seen as a huge update for the Business Platform. At the same time, WhatsApp also confirmed it would be expanding its Business AI capabilities by introducing automated follow-ups and support via WhatsApp chats and rolling out product recommendations on merchant websites. The company explained its new voice and video calling features not only improve current support, but "[pave] the way for AI-enabled voice support in the future." Finally, the social networking giant confirmed it would be centralizing its marketing and campaign management tools across other core platforms - Facebook and Instagram - to make it easier for companies to use shared creatives, budgets and flows across all three platforms. Besides sharing resources across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, businesses will "soon" be able to create ads for WhatsApp Statuses directly in Ads Manager to reach even more customers. Already a popular business networking app for customer support in Brazil and India, WhatsApp is seeing healthy growth across other markets, now counting more than 200 million monthly Business users and 1.5 billion daily users in total. The news comes just a couple of weeks after WhatsApp announced updates to its Channels, including paid subscriptions and the option for businesses to promote channels.

WhatsApp Business Users Can Soon Use AI Chatbot to Recommend Products

WhatsApp said Business users will get AI-enabled voice support in future 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. 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.

WhatsApp Business to support Status ads, AI chat, and Voice calling

Meta announced key upgrades to the WhatsApp Business Platform at its global Conversations event in Miami on July 1. According to Meta, the updates focus on better marketing integration, expanded AI assistance, and new calling features for businesses. Meta is integrating WhatsApp into its broader ad ecosystem. Businesses can now manage campaigns across WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram directly from Meta Ads Manager, using shared creatives, setup flows, and budget allocations. After onboarding, businesses can upload subscriber lists and either manually select WhatsApp messages as a placement or let Advantage+ AI optimize across platforms. Ads Manager will soon allow businesses to create and run ads in WhatsApp Status. To handle rising chat volumes, Meta is expanding its Business AI tools. These AI systems can: The AI tools will soon roll out to more businesses in Mexico, with broader expansion expected. Meta is also enhancing real-time communication options. Soon, larger businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform can: These features pave the way for future AI-powered voice support, enabling more dynamic interactions. Businesses interested in voice calling tools can onboard through Meta's partner network. Meta expects these updates to strengthen business-customer relationships and boost operational efficiency on WhatsApp.