Meta (META.O) has launched the first AI-driven enterprise ad targeting program on WhatsApp to generate revenue from the popular chat service, the company announced at a conference in Brazil on Thursday.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new tool in a video shown during the event.
The announcement marks a shift for WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service that has touted privacy protections and long eschewed the kind of targeted ad tools that underpin other apps like Facebook and Instagram.
The social media giant has been rolling out commerce and payment features on its app for several years, including a “business messaging” tool that lets companies have customer service chats and send marketing materials to people who have shared their phone numbers with the company.
Previously, these tools were blunt instruments used to send mass emails to all users who opted in to receive messages from the company. The new AI tool uses behavior across Facebook and Instagram to target messages to customers who are most likely to receive them. This assumes that the customer uses the same phone number they signed up with across all their accounts.
At the conference, Meta also unveiled a new AI chatbot designed to answer business questions directly over chat, an early test of Zuckerberg’s goal of convincing companies to outsource their communications to automated tools.
The chatbot will assist users with common queries, such as searching the catalog or asking about opening hours, similar to its existing AI-powered customer service platform.
Meta also announced that it would add PIX, a Brazilian instant digital payment instrument once considered a potential competitor, to the country’s WhatsApp payments tool. Developed by the central bank, PIX accounted for about 39% of transactions made in Brazil last year and offers similar services to the WhatsApp payments tool, including sending money between individuals and making purchases from businesses.
WhatsApp also began offering payments services from a competing provider in India last year.