Meta has launched its first AI-based advertising campaign for businesses on WhatsApp, which can be considered a new revenue model for the popular messaging app. This was announced by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a video conference in Brazil. This announcement marks a big change in WhatsApp’s policy, which has always focused on its user’s privacy and has not allowed advertising.
“We believe AI tools can help businesses get people the help they are looking for and find new products and services as well. We’re introducing ways for any business to use AI on the most popular questions they receive so you can get the answer you’re looking for fast.“
WhatsApp Blog
AI tools enhance Ad targeting based on user activity
The new AI tools are designed to improve ad targeting based on user activity on Facebook and Instagram if users use the same phone number across different accounts. This approach differs from the previous methods, where organizations used to send messages to all users who had agreed to receive messages from the businesses. This new system aims to reach the most probable recipients of the content, thus increasing the efficacy and productivity of WhatsApp business communication.
“This is very important for businesses because they are paying for those messages.”
Guilherme Horn, WhatsApp’s head of strategic markets.
In recent years, Meta has been slowly incorporating commerce and payment features into the WhatsApp application. Some of them include business messaging tools that enable companies to interact with customers and send marketing messages to users who have opted to receive them.
Also Read: WhatsApp Introduces AI Chatbot Feature
Despite these efforts, WhatsApp has been unsuccessful in generating revenue for Meta, even though it is the most used app in terms of daily activity and has relatively few users. Meta has developed a new AI chatbot that will assist in answering business-related questions within the chat application to generate more income from WhatsApp.
“We’re training AI to respond to the most popular questions businesses receive on WhatsApp, so they can quickly help customers find the answers they’re seeking.”
Meta Verified launches for businesses on WhatsApp
In order to support businesses even more, WhatsApp is bringing the Meta Verified feature to its Business app. Initially launched in Brazil, Colombia, India, and Indonesia, this service offers the following advantages to registered businesses. Meta also stated that companies that confirm their information with Meta will be issued a Meta Verified badge as proof of authenticity.
The Meta Verified badge also has some benefits such as protection against impersonation and faster response from Meta’s customer service. Businesses can also use WhatsApp across multiple devices, thus enabling employees to attend to customers effectively from any place.
WhatsApp is also testing a new feature that would help consumers engage with even large corporations more effectively. This feature allows customers to easily transition from a text-based conversation to a voice call if they have any further questions or require more detailed information.
Meta’s broader AI strategy focuses on multiple products
The use of these AI tools on WhatsApp is in line with the overall plan of Meta to incorporate AI into its applications. During a recent earnings call, Zuckerberg stated that the company is focused on creating numerous AI solutions. These include a free Meta AI assistant that can be used via Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
Also Read: Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads Experience Outage Again
“We’re building a number of different AI services, from our AI assistant to augmented reality apps and glasses, to APIs that help creators engage their communities and that fans can interact with, to business APIs that we think every business eventually on our platform will use.”
Mark Zuckerberg
The company plans to enable every business in its ecosystem to use these AI features to improve their operations and customers’ experiences. A market research study published by What’s the Big Data showed that over 50 million businesses were actively using WhatsApp Business. Additionally, the messaging platform was able to enhance sales by 127% and customer service by 225%.
