Meta Rolls Out AI Business Agent Globally Across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram

Meta Takes Its Enterprise AI Push Global

Meta Platforms has announced the global availability of its AI-powered Business Agent, unveiling the tool at its annual Conversations conference in London. Designed to automate customer interactions across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, the launch marks a significant escalation of the company's move into the enterprise AI market.

A Virtual Assistant for Every Business

More than one million businesses had already been using earlier versions of Meta's AI chatbots on WhatsApp and Messenger. The updated version now extends to Instagram and is available worldwide to companies of all sizes. According to Meta, the Business Agent can answer customer questions, recommend products from a catalogue, book appointments, qualify leads, close sales, and escalate complex issues to human staff when necessary.

Meta says the agent can be set up in minutes and communicates in customers' local languages while matching a company's preferred tone and style. It also provides business owners with daily summaries of customer interactions and insights into engagement patterns, with future updates planned for market research, calendar management and competitive intelligence.

The service will initially be free, with Meta planning to introduce paid subscription tiers in the coming months. CEO Mark Zuckerberg had hinted at monetisation during the company's first-quarter earnings call in April, noting that business AI tools were facilitating about 10 million conversations per week, up from one million at the start of the year.

A Platform for Custom Agents

Alongside the consumer-facing product, Meta introduced the Business Agent Platform, an infrastructure layer allowing companies to build and deploy custom AI agents at scale. The platform supports integrations with external systems including Shopify, Zendesk and Shopee, and offers enterprise-grade controls and compliance tools for larger organisations.

Regulatory Backdrop

The launch comes as Meta faces regulatory scrutiny in Europe over competition on WhatsApp. Earlier reporting indicated that Meta offered rival AI chatbots, including OpenAI's, limited free access to WhatsApp in Europe as part of negotiations with EU antitrust authorities. The company's decision to build its own business AI tools while restricting third-party general-purpose chatbots on the platform underscores a strategy to keep commercial AI interactions within its ecosystem. Meta had reportedly been testing the Business Agent in some countries in a limited capacity before the global rollout.