Meta Platforms on Wednesday introduced a new artificial intelligence agent designed to handle day-to-day business operations, marking a significant step in the social media giant’s effort to expand beyond consumer apps into enterprise AI tools.
Unveiled at the company’s WhatsApp-focused Conversations conference in London, the Business Agent adds “agentic” functionality — the ability to autonomously take actions on behalf of businesses, such as booking calendar appointments, qualifying leads, closing sales, and processing payments.
This goes well beyond simple rule-based chatbots by enabling more complex, multi-step workflows.
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Naomi Gleit, Meta’s head of product for the initiative, described the launch as a clear enterprise play.
“This is definitely an enterprise play,” he said.
Meta said more than 1 million businesses are already using earlier chatbot versions of such agents on WhatsApp and Messenger. The new version will be rolled out globally to businesses of all sizes and added to Instagram as well. Initially free, paid subscription options are planned for the coming months.
Broader Business Agent Platform and Ecosystem Integration
Alongside the in-app Business Agent, Meta is launching a wider Business Agent Platform that allows companies to build and deploy custom AI agents across their operations. The platform connects to hundreds of non-Meta systems, including Shopify, Zendesk, and Shopee, and offers enterprise-grade controls, guardrails, and performance measurement tools.
This platform approach aims to position Meta as a central orchestrator in the growing agentic AI space, where AI systems can independently manage workflows rather than just respond to queries.
Gleit highlighted the need for a unified experience, saying: “The number one thing I hear, especially from small businesses, is ‘I just want to go to one place that can do all the things.’”
She is leading a new Enterprise Solutions team as part of a recent company-wide restructuring around AI. The team will deploy squads of forward-deployed engineers to work directly with large customers, a model popularized by companies like Anthropic, to navigate internal adoption challenges and customize solutions.
Meta is also working to consolidate its various AI agents, including internal workflow tools, the public Meta AI bot, and a recently launched ads-focused business assistant.
The launch spins off Meta’s ambition to leverage its massive reach across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, platforms with billions of users, to gain ground in the enterprise AI market against specialists like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
By embedding agentic capabilities directly into the communication tools businesses already use to engage customers, Meta is betting it can become a one-stop platform for both consumer-facing interactions and internal operations. This strategy could help the company diversify revenue beyond advertising while deepening its integration into business workflows.
Gleit emphasized the importance of orchestration and efficiency.
“We actually want to take actions now. We actually want it to be able to complete the payment, to process the booking, to place the order,” she said.
The move comes as competition in agentic AI intensifies. Rivals are rapidly advancing their own autonomous agents, while Microsoft and Apple are enhancing their ecosystems with similar capabilities.
However, Gleit acknowledged the risks of permitting AI agents to act on behalf of businesses, particularly around security and reliability. Meta recently faced an embarrassing incident in which hackers tricked its AI support chatbot into granting access to high-profile Instagram accounts.
She noted the issue stemmed from a flawed technical check rather than the agent itself.
“It wasn’t the agent. The agent actually exposed a technical check that wasn’t working. There was sort of a separate system and technical check that had a bug, and because people were using the agent, they discovered it,” she said.
Shares of Meta rose more than 3% in morning trading, suggesting investors view the announcement positively as a step toward new revenue streams and deeper platform stickiness.
The Business Agent and Platform represent Meta’s latest attempt to monetize its vast messaging ecosystem while positioning itself in the high-growth enterprise AI sector.
As AI agents move from experimental tools to core business infrastructure, Meta’s entry adds significant competition and choice for companies looking to automate operations. But the move represents more than just a product launch for Meta — it is seen as part of a broader strategic shift to build durable, high-margin AI businesses that complement its advertising empire and reduce reliance on any single revenue source.