Meta launched its first AI-driven ad targeting programme for businesses on WhatsApp as it tries to wring revenue out of the popular chat service, the company announced on Thursday at a conference in Brazil.
TakeAway Points:
- Meta launched its first AI-driven ad targeting programme for businesses on WhatsApp, the company revealed on Thursday at a conference in Brazil.
- Meta also introduced a new AI chatbot to answer business inquiries directly in chat, an early test of Zuckerberg’s goal to convince businesses to outsource their communications to automated tools.
- The company also announced it’s adding Brazil’s instantaneous digital payment method, PIX, once seen as a potential competitor, to its WhatsApp payment tool in the country.
Meta’s First AI-driven Programme for Whatsapp
At a conference in Brazil on Thursday, Meta revealed that it has begun its first AI-driven ad targeting programme for businesses on WhatsApp in an effort to extract money from the well-known messaging service.
A video that was shown during the occasion featured CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing the new tools.
The statement is a change for WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app that has long eschewed the kinds of targeted advertising technologies that support Meta’s other applications, just like Facebook and Instagram, and heavily touts its privacy credentials.
WhatsApp Business Features
According to the report, the massive social media platform has been rolling out payment and business features on the app for a number of years now. These features include “business messaging” facilities that let businesses communicate with customers and send promotional materials to those who have given their phone numbers to them.
Before, all users who had opted in to receive the company’s outreach would have received blasts from these brutal instruments. If users use the same opted-in phone number across accounts, the new AI capabilities will target the messages to individuals most likely to be receptive to them based on their behaviour on Facebook and Instagram.
WhatsApp’s head of strategic markets, Guilherme Horn, told sources that these AI tools would give businesses the possibility to optimise ad delivery to users most likely to engage.
“This is very important for business because they are paying for those messages.” Horn said.
Meta has been ramping up efforts to earn money off WhatsApp, its biggest app in terms of daily users. Despite the service’s popularity and its eye-popping $22 billion acquisition price tag in 2014, to date it has contributed only a sliver to Meta’s total revenue.
Meta’s new AI Chatbot for Business
At the conference, Meta also introduced a new AI chatbot to answer business inquiries directly in chat, an early test of Zuckerberg’s goal to convince businesses to outsource their communications to automated tools.
The chatbot will assist users with common requests such as finding catalogues or consulting business hours, similar to existing AI-powered customer service platforms.
It also announced it’s adding Brazil’s instantaneous digital payment method, PIX, once seen as a potential competitor, to its WhatsApp payment tool in the country.
PIX, designed by the central bank, has represented about 39% of the transactions made in Brazil last year, and offers similar services to the WhatsApp payments tool, such as money transfers between individuals and purchases from companies.
WhatsApp similarly started offering payment services from rival providers in India last year.
