WhatsApp is becoming much more than a messaging app as the company unveiled three upgrades to the WhatsApp Business platform at the annual Conversations 2025 event in Miami.
The platform is “streamlining” how businesses can create and manage their marketing strategy across WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram — all in Ads Manager. Regardless of the company’s size, it can utilise the same creative, setup flows, and budgets in one central location. Once onboarded, “businesses can upload their subscriber list and either manually select marketing messages as an additional placement or use Advantage+, and our AI systems will then optimise budgets across placements to maximise performance”.
The second announcement is around AI-powered business assistants. WhatsApp is “exploring a Business AI” that can make personalised product recommendations and facilitate sales on any business website and then “follow up with customers to answer questions or provide updates right in a WhatsApp chat”.
It means a customer can complete a shopping journey entirely within a WhatsApp thread without having to switch to another app.
The third announcement is perhaps the most significant for customer support teams. It’s always helpful to offer additional support to customers beyond just a text. In the coming weeks, larger businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform will be able to “receive a call from a customer when they want to talk to someone live, or call a customer directly once they’ve asked to hear from you”.
Soon, WhatsApp Business Platform will make it possible to “send and receive voice messages for additional support, or make a video call, which can be helpful for things like a telehealth appointment”.
Bringing calling and voice updates to the WhatsApp Business Platform will help people communicate “in a way that works best for them and paves the way for AI-enabled voice support in the future”.