Meta’s efforts to expand its core business beyond online advertising involve pitching companies AI-powered chat tools that they can use on their own websites. The social media giant debuted on Thursday a digital assistant dubbed Business AI, describing the software as a way for companies to offer their customers more personalized product recommendations and faster ways to buy goods via chat interactions. Online retailers can use the Business AI digital assistant across Meta’s apps like Facebook and Instagram as well as their own websites that are powered by platforms like Shopify.
This new, company-focused artificial intelligence assistant represents another way Meta is trying to build a major business incorporating generative AI, an area where CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been investing billions of dollars. It also comes amid a wave of tech companies offering advanced digital assistants called AI agents that can streamline tedious, repetitive tasks, such as the AI agent Amazon debuted in September for third-party merchants.
Strategic Pricing and Enterprise Partnerships
Clara Shih, Meta’s head of business AI, said during a press briefing that the company is “going beyond ads and beyond Meta to help businesses drive impact across their customer experiences and customer operations.” Shih noted that the Business AI digital assistant will be free for companies to incorporate into their Meta ads so their customers can ask product-related questions and more easily purchase items. However, if those companies want to use the Meta Business AI assistant on their own websites, they will have to pay a yet-to-be-determined price that Shih said will be cheaper than other “market alternatives.”
Shih explained that Meta is partnering with major enterprise companies like her former employer Salesforce, as well as Microsoft, ServiceNow, and Zendesk, to provide customer relationship management services and chatbots as part of its business AI push. She offered an analogy, saying Meta’s Business AI software would work alongside third-party chat apps by handling simple queries before walking the customer over to the “customer service desk to handle those more complicated requests.” The Business AI digital assistant will also be available on WhatsApp and Messenger later this month in Mexico and the Philippines, with more markets coming down the line.
A Focus on the Customer Journey
Shih explained that if companies use the Business AI digital assistant across Meta apps and their retail-oriented websites, the software should presumably provide better responses to users that correspond to their product-related inquiries. Meta also debuted another tool called the Meta AI business assistant, which is intended for its advertisers to access for account problems and learn how their ad campaigns are performing. The company had previously spent $1 billion in 2020 to buy the enterprise CRM startup Kustomer, but then spun it out in 2023 during the social media giant’s “year of efficiency,” showing the company is taking a more integrated approach to enterprise services now.
Author’s Opinion
This move by Meta is a bold and strategic thrust that aims to transform the company into a full-stack enterprise platform, not just an ad seller. By offering the initial integration for free and charging for external website usage, Meta is trying to create a viral on-ramp for businesses to adopt its AI, effectively becoming an invisible sales layer across the entire internet. This strategy challenges the market dominance of established CRM providers and demonstrates Meta’s determination to monetize its massive AI investment by inserting its technology at every step of the customer journey, from ad discovery on Facebook to final purchase on a third-party website.
Featured image credit: Alessio Jacona via Flickr
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