Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, is planning to roll out AI chatbots for free on WhatsApp to complement its messaging app monetization efforts. The feature aligns with efforts from CEO Mark Zuckerberg to embed AI across Meta’s apps and make money from it.
The company is giving away its AI model and chatbots, unlike its rivals. It stands in contrast to the ad tools for targeted advertising on Meta’s other platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the company debuted its inaugural AI-powered ad-targeting service on WhatsApp for business at a conference in Brazil this week. It’s a big change for the privacy-focused encrypted messaging service and unlikely to sit well with its users.
These new AI tools will use data based on user behavior insights from Facebook and Instagram to send messages to the most active customers. This allows businesses to enhance ad delivery to these interested users, which is a key benefit since they are paying for these messages.
Its most popular app in terms of daily users is WhatsApp, and Meta has been on a push to monetize it. WhatsApp, which Meta bought for $22 billion in 2014, has been a relative drop in the financial bucket for the company, despite its popularity.
So, Meta launched commerce features and payment options on the app, including business messaging tools for customer service and marketing. These AI chatbots are a much more convenient solution for businesses, because they can automate their communications, such as responding to frequently asked questions and helping with product discovery or hours of operation.WhatsApp.
The announcement of company also revealed that Meta had added Brazil’s digital payment method, PIX to its WhatsApp payment tool. PIX accounted for about 39% of transactions in the country last year, was developed by the central bank and offers services such as WhatsApp payments, transferring money and buying goods at companies.
This integration highlights Meta’s strategy to diversify its payment services via WhatsApp, similar to one in India, where it began offering payment services with rival providers.
