This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on February 10, 2025 - February 16, 2025

Local businesses have long relied on WhatsApp as the country’s leading messaging platform. Now, business owners can take it a step further with artificial intelligence (AI) features that streamline communication and improve workflow management.

Meta’s new business AI for WhatsApp was recently released at Meta’s Connect event, and businesses that engage with Meta AI on WhatsApp Business will be able to automate tasks with ease.

WhatsApp Business AI can handle customer queries on behalf of businesses by providing basic information, recommending products or services, sharing pricing and stock details, and updating customers on discounts, payment methods and shipping.

“We’re seeing promising signs that Meta AI works well on messaging, and particularly on WhatsApp, with a lot of interest and engagement among consumers. WhatsApp is the most popular platform for Meta AI engagement so far and this represents a great connection between the power of chats and AI together,” says Nikila Srinivasan, vice-president of product management and business messaging at Meta.

Malaysia was chosen as one of the countries for early access to business AI on WhatsApp due to customers preferring to message a business over calling and emailing, and this applies across small and large businesses.

Nikila shares that Malaysia specifically has seen seven out of 10 customers preferring to message a business instead of other forms of communication, like calling or emailing.

“We’ve seen consistent growth and momentum in Malaysia and are invested in providing tools that further enable businesses here,” she says.

Nikila is optimistic about AI adoption in Malaysian businesses. She highlights the success of Shivika Pottery in India, where Meta AI on WhatsApp Business improved response times and maintained a personalised touch.

Meta AI for WhatsApp uses a combination of sources used for training the underlying large language model, and these sources include licensed information that is publicly available online, as well as information from the business’ products and services that they have shared with Meta, such as Meta Catalogue.

Meta will still continue operating within the privacy guidelines of WhatsApp, and Nikila reaffirms that personal messages with friends and family will remain end-to-end encrypted and will not be used to train AI from Meta.

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