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Meta Enters Enterprise AI Race with New Business Agent
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia /Technology

Meta Enters Enterprise AI Race with New Business Agent

From Asharq Al-Awsat · () English

Summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources New plan
  • Meta launched an AI agent to help businesses manage daily operations, entering the enterprise AI market.
  • The new tool expands on existing services, enabling actions like booking appointments and closing sales.
  • Meta aims to compete with rivals like OpenAI and Google by leveraging its social media platforms.

Meta Platforms has entered the enterprise artificial intelligence race with the unveiling of a new AI agent designed to assist businesses with their day-to-day operations. The announcement positions the social media giant as a significant player in the burgeoning enterprise AI market.

Unveiled at the company's Conversations conference in London, the Business Agent builds upon existing messaging services on platforms like WhatsApp and Messenger. It introduces "agentic" capabilities, allowing the AI to perform tasks such as scheduling appointments and finalizing sales on behalf of businesses. Meta reported that over one million businesses already utilize earlier chatbot versions of these agents.

The new AI agent will be integrated into Instagram and rolled out globally to businesses of all sizes. This move signals Meta's ambition to challenge competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in the enterprise AI sector. The company plans to leverage the vast user base of its apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, to drive adoption.

This is definitely an enterprise play.

— Naomi GleitDescribing Meta's strategic move into the enterprise AI market.

Naomi Gleit, Meta's head of product, stated, "This is definitely an enterprise play." The Business Agent can be customized to align with a company's specific tone and handle tasks ranging from answering frequently asked questions to qualifying sales leads. Complex queries can be escalated to human staff. While the tool will initially be free, paid subscription options are planned for the coming months.

Meta is also launching a "Business Agent Platform" to provide businesses with the infrastructure to create custom AI agents for managing operations across various systems like Shopify and Zendesk. This platform offers enterprise-grade controls and analytics. Gleit is leading Meta's expansion into AI agents through a new Enterprise Solutions team, which will embed engineers with clients to develop tailored AI solutions, a model also employed by companies like Anthropic.

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.

— Naomi GleitExplaining the advanced capabilities of the new AI agent beyond basic automation.
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Originally published by Asharq Al-Awsat. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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