Meta enters enterprise AI race with new business agent
Meta's Strategic Move into Enterprise AI
By Katie Paul
Unveiling the New Business Agent
LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms on Wednesday unveiled an artificial intelligence agent aimed at helping businesses carry out day-to-day operations, positioning the social media giant as a player in the enterprise AI market.
Announced at the company's WhatsApp-focused Conversations conference in London, the new product expands on existing business messaging services by enabling "agentic" capabilities in which the assistant can take actions like booking calendar appointments and closing sales on behalf of businesses.
Expansion Across Platforms
The company said more than 1 million businesses were already using earlier chatbot versions of such agents on WhatsApp and Messenger. The new version will be added to Instagram as well and rolled out globally to businesses of all sizes.
Competing in the Enterprise AI Market
The move hints at Meta's ambitions to compete with rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet's Google in the market for enterprise applications of its AI tools, leveraging the reach of its WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook apps.
"This is definitely an enterprise play," Naomi Gleit, Meta's head of product, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.
Capabilities and Customization
The Business Agent can be customized to respond to queries on those apps, channeling a company's tone and handling tasks such as answering frequently asked questions, qualifying leads and escalating complex queries to human staff when needed.
Businesses will initially be able to access the tool for free, with paid subscription options planned in the coming months.
Beyond Legacy Bots
"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," going beyond "rule-based automations" for legacy bots, she said.
Introducing the Business Agent Platform
Alongside the new Business Agent offerings inside Meta's apps, the company is also launching a broader "Business Agent Platform" aimed at giving businesses the infrastructure to build custom AI agents to help them manage their operations elsewhere.
Integration and Controls
The platform is connected to hundreds of non-Meta systems like Shopify, Zendesk and Shopee, where those agents can be deployed, and provides larger businesses with enterprise-grade controls, guardrails and measurement, the company said.
Meta's Enterprise Solutions Team
Gleit is spearheading the company's efforts to expand into new lines of business around AI agents, including with a new team, Enterprise Solutions, announced as part of a recent companywide restructuring around AI.
Forward-Deployed Engineers
The team will send squads of forward-deployed engineers to embed with enterprise customers, a model used by AI companies such as Anthropic that is aimed at navigating internal politics around AI adoption and writing custom code to help models deliver results.
Future Scope and Consolidation
Its scope is currently focused on new business agents, but it is also working to build and sell agentic AI products that businesses can use for additional internal functions.
Gleit is also working to consolidate the different AI agents Meta has built, including internal workflow-oriented tooling, a user-facing Meta AI support bot and a separate ads-focused "business assistant" launched globally last month, she said.
Meeting Business Needs
"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 said.
"You want to make things modular, and you also need to be willing to evolve, because the technology is moving so quickly."
(Reporting by Katie Paul in London, additional reporting by Aditya Soni; Editing by Pooja Desai)
