WhatsApp Gets a New AI Business Agent That Can Recommend Products, Book Appointments and Close Sales

Meta has unveiled a new AI-powered assistant for WhatsApp that aims to automate customer conversations for businesses. Called the Meta Business Agent, the new tool is designed to handle everything from answering customer queries and recommending products to booking appointments and even helping businesses close sales without requiring a human agent for every interaction.

The announcement was made at WhatsApp's third annual Business Summit in Mumbai and comes as Meta continues to expand its AI offerings across its family of apps. The company is betting that conversational AI will become the primary way businesses interact with customers over messaging platforms.

What Is Meta Business Agent?

Meta describes the Business Agent as an AI assistant that can serve customers around the clock "as if they had an infinite team behind them." Instead of acting as a simple chatbot with predefined replies, the AI is designed to understand a business, personalise responses and manage customer interactions from start to finish.

According to Meta, the AI can:

1. Answer questions about a business and its products.
2. Recommend products from a company's catalogue.
3. Book appointments and qualify leads.
4. Escalate conversations to a human employee when necessary.
5. Help businesses complete sales.

Beyond customer support, the AI also provides summaries of missed conversations and surfaces insights from customer interactions, helping business owners keep track of operations without manually reviewing every chat.

Large Businesses Get a Dedicated AI Platform

Alongside the AI agent, Meta has also introduced the Meta Business Agent Platform for larger enterprises.

The platform allows companies to build and customise their own AI agents while integrating them with existing business systems such as Shopify, Zendesk and Shopee. Working alongside the WhatsApp Business Platform, Meta says it offers enterprise-grade controls, scalability and analytics for businesses handling high volumes of customer conversations.

The company also showcased early implementations from businesses including Swiggy, Madhulika Enterprises and Kaizen Adventours, which are already using the AI agent to automate customer engagement.

More AI Is Coming to WhatsApp

Meta is also making it easier for users to discover businesses that use the new AI agent. Soon, WhatsApp users will be able to search for businesses directly within WhatsApp Search or share business contacts with friends and family, making it easier to connect with verified businesses on the platform.

The launch comes as Meta continues to embed AI across WhatsApp. Earlier this year, the company rolled out Meta AI to consumers, while it recently announced a shift to token-based pricing for businesses using AI-powered features on the WhatsApp Business Platform, reflecting the growing role of generative AI in enterprise messaging.