At a conference held in Brazil, Meta unveiled its latest endeavor: an AI-powered ad targeting initiative tailored for businesses on WhatsApp. This move signifies a departure for WhatsApp, known for its emphasis on privacy and aversion to targeted advertising, in contrast to Meta’s other platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

The newly introduced AI tools represent a significant evolution from WhatsApp’s previous blunt messaging methods. Leveraging user behavior data from Facebook and Instagram, these tools aim to precisely target messages to individuals who are most likely to engage with them, provided they use the same opted-in phone number across platforms.

Guilherme Horn, WhatsApp’s head of strategic markets, emphasized the potential of these AI tools for businesses, allowing them to optimize ad delivery and enhance engagement with users. Meta’s intensified focus on monetizing WhatsApp, its largest platform in terms of daily users, comes after years of minimal revenue contribution despite its hefty acquisition price of $22 billion in 2014.

The chatbot feature accompanying these AI tools will assist users with common inquiries, mirroring existing AI-driven customer service platforms. Additionally, Meta announced the integration of Brazil’s popular digital payment method PIX into WhatsApp’s payment tool, despite initial perceptions of competition between the two services.

PIX, developed by the central bank, accounted for approximately 39% of Brazil’s transactions last year, offering similar services to WhatsApp payments such as peer-to-peer transfers and business transactions.