Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp: what it does, who can use it and how to pause it

Meta now builds an AI agent into the WhatsApp Business app. Where it is available, it sits under Tools, learns from what your business has already published, and answers customers around the clock. Where it is not, there is no button and a waitlist. Here is what it does, how to switch it off, and how it compares with running a separate assistant.

What is Meta Business Agent?

It is Meta's AI agent for businesses, replying for you in WhatsApp chats (and, per Meta, on Messenger and Instagram too). According to Meta's product page it can:

• answer questions about your hours, location, products and services,
• recommend products and give prices,
• answer questions about discounts, payment and shipping,
• ask customers questions and collect the details you need,
• hand chats to you on topics you flag, or whenever you step in.

It learns from your Facebook Page posts and past WhatsApp chats, plus a website, catalog or price list if you add them (Meta). Meta says more than a million businesses were already using a Business Agent on WhatsApp and Messenger when it announced a global expansion on 3 June 2026.

Who can use it?

Not everyone, yet. WhatsApp's help pages describe it as available in limited countries to select businesses. The language it uses is determined by your business's phone number, and not every language is supported yet. If there is no AI agent option under Tools, it is not available to you. There is a waitlist, but WhatsApp says joining it guarantees neither access nor a date (WhatsApp Help Center).

Meta's June announcement talks about businesses of all sizes globally, while its help pages still say limited countries. Go by what your own app shows.

What does it cost?

Getting started is free. In June Meta said paid subscriptions would follow, and in September it launched Meta One, whose business plans start at $14.99 a month and include access to Meta Business Agent, with more capacity on the higher tiers (Meta). Prices and availability vary by region, so check the Subscriptions screen in your app for your figure.

How do you set it up?

1. Make sure the number is registered in the WhatsApp Business app.
2. Go to Tools, then Meta Business Agent, authenticate, link your account if asked, and confirm.
3. Teach it: it reads your past chats, and you can add a website, catalog or price list.
4. Test it by chatting with it as a customer would, then activate it.

Then choose where it replies, from AI replies in its settings: all new one-to-one chats, all except your saved contacts, only chats that start from your Facebook or Instagram ads, or paused for new chats while it keeps learning. If you switch it on in a chat where you are mid-conversation, it stays quiet there unless that chat has been inactive for seven days (WhatsApp Help Center).

How to pause or delete Meta Business Agent

This has to be done in the WhatsApp Business mobile app. It cannot be paused or deleted from WhatsApp Web.

• Pause it: Tools, Meta Business Agent, Response settings, Disconnect AI, Pause AI replies. It stops answering new chats.
• Delete it: the same path, then Disconnect and delete my AI, and a short survey. Turning it on again later means going through setup again.
• Remove it from one chat: open the chat, tap the contact's name, then Include your AI and Remove AI. It stops replying there and stops learning from that chat.
• Reply yourself: answering a customer by hand pauses the agent in that chat until you unmute it.

What do customers see?

WhatsApp tells them. A notice in the chat says that AI from Meta receives chats to improve AI quality and generate messages for the business, and messages the AI writes carry an AI label. Customers can ask to stop receiving AI-generated messages, and the agent will then try to connect them with you (WhatsApp Help Center).

Meta Business Agent or a separate assistant?

I build Replai, so read the right-hand column with that in mind. My honest advice: if Meta Business Agent is available to you and answers your customers well, start there. It is official and it is free to start. A separate assistant earns its place when Meta's is not offered in your country, when your customers write in languages it does not cover, or when you want order updates and payment reminders sent from your store's number. If that is you, see what it would answer for your business. And whichever you use, run one assistant per number, not two.

Related reading: how WhatsApp Business chatbots work without the API, and what a restriction does to linked devices.