WhatsApp Launches Meta Business Agent, an AI Agent for 24-Hour Business Services
WHATSAPP has officially introduced Meta Business Agent, an artificial intelligence (AI) innovation designed to help business owners serve customers 24 hours a day. The service enables business interactions to be conducted automatically yet remain personal through conversations in the WhatsApp application.
Meta’s Vice President for India and Southeast Asia, Sandhya Devanathan, explained that the presence of this AI agent aims to support the activities of users in Indonesia who increasingly rely on WhatsApp. In addition to being a messaging application, WhatsApp is now widely used for ordering food, planning trips, and communicating with various business units.
“Meta Business Agent helps businesses in Indonesia be present in every one of those moments through AI-based conversations that are fast, personal, and available 24 hours a day,” said Sandhya in Jakarta on Tuesday (11/8/2026).
Meta’s internal data shows that the use of WhatsApp for business purposes in Indonesia is highly significant. Around 71 percent of app users send messages to business accounts every day. In addition, the majority of users consider the presence of AI agents to be very helpful in obtaining information more quickly and efficiently.
Sandhya added that globally, more than one million businesses have utilised Meta Business Agent on the WhatsApp and Messenger platforms every week. This reflects the openness of the public, including in Indonesia, towards the use of AI in daily activities.
Meta provides two implementation pathways for this technology based on business scale. The technology is also capable of helping identify prospective customers and supporting the sales process. Although AI-based, the system still provides an option to transfer conversations to a member of the business team (a human) should customers require further, more complex assistance.
With integration with the WhatsApp Business Platform, large companies now have broader capabilities to manage, measure, and operate AI agents at a massive scale according to their operational needs.