Business Users Set to Receive WhatsApp's Voice Calling Functionality
WhatsApp, the world's most popular messaging app, is set to revolutionise business interactions with its latest updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform. The platform will now offer voice-calling capabilities and AI-powered product recommendations, marking its first move into AI-powered voice interactions and a significant leap towards building a commerce engine within the app.
Key Impacts of the Updates
1. Enhanced Customer Engagement: Large businesses can now make and receive live voice calls directly within WhatsApp, a feature previously limited to small businesses. This feature allows enterprises to escalate from chat to voice seamlessly, enabling more personal and real-time conversations. For instance, a telecom company can resolve technical queries more effectively through voice calls, while banks and travel agents can offer live consultations, improving customer service quality and satisfaction.
2. Faster and More Personal Support: Voice and video calls help businesses handle complex queries more efficiently compared to text chat alone, speeding up issue resolution and reducing frustration for customers.
3. AI-Driven Automation and Recommendations: WhatsApp is introducing AI agents that automate follow-ups and support within chats, as well as provide personalized product recommendations on merchant websites. This enhances the customer shopping experience by making it more tailored and context-aware, driving more effective sales and marketing outcomes.
4. Unified Marketing and Sales Tools: Businesses can run and optimize ad campaigns across WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram from a single dashboard using Meta’s Ads Manager and AI optimization tools. This integration helps brands scale their marketing efforts efficiently without juggling multiple platforms.
These upgrades transform WhatsApp from a simple messaging app into a comprehensive business hub. Large businesses gain a powerful tool for quicker customer engagement, personalized shopping, and unified marketing—crucial factors that will accelerate digital transformation and customer-centric business models on the platform.
Meta is also exploring AI agents for voice-based customer support, potentially integrating with startups like Vapi, ElevenLabs, Coval, or Phonic. The new voice-calling feature will support two-way calling and will be available in the coming weeks.
With over 200 million monthly active users on WhatsApp Business, these updates are expected to deepen enterprise reliance on the platform, drive higher customer satisfaction, and boost revenue opportunities for large businesses leveraging WhatsApp as a primary communication and sales channel. Meta monetizes the platform through click-to-WhatsApp ads and fees for messaging services used by merchants, with executives hinting at potential pricing for AI tools once usage scales and businesses begin to depend on these capabilities.
[1] https://www.whatsapp.com/business/resources/announcements/whatsapp-business-api-voice [2] https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/01/whatsapp-business-voice-calls/ [3] https://www.reuters.com/business/technology/whatsapp-to-let-businesses-make-voice-calls-through-api-2023-03-01/ [4] https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/1/23616737/whatsapp-business-voice-calls-ai-tools-commerce-engine-meta
Artificial intelligence is being integrated into the WhatsApp Business Platform, introducing AI-powered voice interactions and AI agents for follow-ups, support, and product recommendations, marking a significant step towards the development of voice-based customer support.
With the introduction of AI-driven automation and recommendations, WhatsApp is aiming to make the customer shopping experience more tailored and context-aware, driving more effective sales and marketing outcomes.
