WhatsApp adds business voice calls, opening the door for AI agents

Nobody likes waiting on hold for customer service while listening to elevator music. Meta knows this, and it’s turning WhatsApp into the next major battlefield for automated voice support.

On Tuesday, WhatsApp announced it is opening up voice calling for large businesses through its API. While smaller merchants have had voice calling for a while, larger brands were left out until now. Over the next few weeks, enterprise accounts will be able to receive voice calls from customers and, crucially, call them back—a feature that wasn't supported during early testing.

WhatsApp also plans to let businesses and customers exchange voice messages in the near future.

Bringing AI voice agents to your chat list

This isn't just about VoIP pipes for human call centers. Meta is explicitly opening the door for AI-powered voice agents.

By hooking into the API, companies can deploy autonomous voice bots from AI startups like ElevenLabs, Vapi, Coval, or Phonic to handle tier-one support directly over WhatsApp.

Beyond phone calls, Meta is also exploring AI-driven product recommendations. Taking a cue from several venture-backed e-commerce tools, Meta wants AI to recommend products on a merchant’s storefront and then seamlessly handle follow-ups or status updates inside WhatsApp.

Meanwhile, an AI chat support feature that started testing last year is now expanding to more merchants in Mexico.

Meta is playing the long game on monetization

WhatsApp Business has quietly turned into an absolute monster, boasting over 200 million monthly active users and repeatedly getting shoutouts in Meta’s recent earnings calls.

Right now, Meta makes money on WhatsApp through click-to-message ads and paid messaging tiers for merchants. For these new AI tools, Meta isn't charging anything yet, though it hinted that monetization could kick in once the features achieve sufficient scale.

The general rollout kicks off today for business customers and will expand broadly over the coming weeks.

Why it matters

Instead of trying to build an in-house voice assistant to monopolize the stack, Meta is wisely turning WhatsApp into the default distribution rail for third-party AI voice platforms. Giving startups like ElevenLabs and Vapi instant access to 200 million merchants will rapidly accelerate the death of traditional call centers.

For consumers, it means resolving a canceled flight or a broken return right inside the messaging app they already use every day, without sitting through twenty minutes of terrible hold audio.

However, there is an obvious trap. Giving enterprises the ability to place outbound calls and send voice notes opens the floodgates to AI-powered telemarketing spam. If Meta doesn't enforce strict anti-spam guardrails, WhatsApp risks alienating the very users that make the platform valuable.

Overall, Meta is playing the classic playbook: offer the infrastructure for free, let businesses get hooked on automated efficiencies, and flip the monetization switch later. Competitors running enterprise support suites should be paying very close attention.