The Meta Business Agent will help small businesses deliver personalised experiences such as making product recommendations and booking appointments.
Meta is introducing its business agent designed to help small businesses deliver non-stop personalised customer service experiences for consumers.
The business agent will also double up as a partner for delivering a morning summary to identify issues raised in chats missed overnight.
“We’re introducing Meta Business Agent – AI that lets every business show up for every customer as if they had an infinite team behind them. Business Agent can be set up in minutes or plugged directly into your existing enterprise infrastructure so you can [produce] ten times or hundred times [more] output,” the company said in a statement.
More than a million businesses around the world are using a business agent across WhatsApp and Messenger, with over a billion active threads between businesses on WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram each day, Meta highlighted, adding the business agent could deliver personalised and relevant experiences from the initial interaction.
This is now being expanded to businesses across the world of all sizes, using local languages, and casual, friendly tone. Meta outlined a number of different use cases including:
- Answer questions specific to your business;
- Make product recommendations from a business catalogue;
- Book appointments and qualify incoming leads;
- Let users decide when a team member steps in to provide support; and
- Close sales.
A select number of businesses on the WhatsApp Business app, Instagram Pro, Messenger, and Meta Business Suite will get access to the features, and Meta plans to expand capabilities to include; “conducting market research, surfacing product insights, connecting with the tools to manage your calendar and providing competitive intelligence”.
While adland is adoting AI, research showed consumers are still wary of interacting with AI for customer service. More than three-quarters (79%) of Americans polled would ‘strongly prefer’ interacting with a human over an AI agent.
This is not just an issue with communication, it’s also about trust. As much as 84% of consumers believe that human agents are more accurate than AI; and 81% believe AI is used primarily when companies need to save money, rather than improve service.
