For years, WhatsApp has been a communication layer for businesses of all sizes around the world. Now, Meta is infusing artificial intelligence into this platform to turn it into a viable piece of workflow software for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The company’s customer support AI bot, known as Meta Business Agent, is now available globally within WhatsApp. This AI agent can answer customer questions, recommend products, book appointments, qualify sales leads, and reroute queries to a person if needed. The bot is also being made available within Instagram DMs.

Meta is testing a feature that would provide daily briefings of chats that occurred overnight, along with insights for select accounts on WhatsApp Business, Instagram Pro, Messenger and Meta Business Suite. Additionally, the company is working to add capabilities such as market research, product feature highlighting, calendar management, and integration with tools like Shopify, Zendesk, and Shopee.

This move could be critical for WhatsApp, which has relied on businesses paying for messaging and click-to-WhatsApp ads. Meta plans to charge businesses for using this AI agent by including it in some tiers of its WhatsApp Business Premium subscription, with large businesses being charged based on token usage. The goal is to make customer service more efficient and effective.