Meta wants to bring its Business AI chat tools to third-party websites

Meta‘s efforts to expand its core business from online advertising involves 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 to 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 apps like Facebook and Instagram as well as their own websites that are powered by Shopify, Meta said.

The new company-focused artificial intelligence assistant represents another way Meta is trying to make a big business incorporating generative AI, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been investing billions of dollars into. It also comes amid a wave of tech companies offering advanced digital assistants called AI agents that can streamline tedious, repetitive tasks.

Amazon, for instance, debuted in September an AI agent that third-party merchants can use for their online businesses.

“We are going beyond ads and beyond Meta to help businesses drive impact across their customer experiences and customer operations,” Meta’s head of business AI, Clara Shih, said during a press briefing.

Shih said 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 by interacting with the Facebook and Instagram advertisements. 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.”

“We’re entering a new AI product category that makes our ads better,” Shih said.

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, Shih said.

If companies use the Business AI digital assistant across Meta apps and their retail-oriented websites, Shih explained that the software should presumably provide better responses to users that correspond to their product-related inquiries.

Shih said that Meta is partnering with companies like her former employer Salesforce, as well as Microsoft, ServiceNow, Zendesk and others to provide customer relationship management services and chatbots as part of its business AI push.

“The best analogy is if you, as a customer, ask a salesperson about warranty information or a return,” Shih said about the way Meta’s Business AI software would work alongside third-party chat apps focusing on customer support. “Often, they’ll walk you over to the customer service desk to handle those more complicated requests.”

Meta previously spent $1 billion in 2020 to buy the enterprise CRM startup Kustomer, but then spun it out in 2023 as an independent company during the social media giant’s “year of efficiency.”

The company 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. 

WATCH: Meta is paving the way for the industry, not chasing quick profits.