This week, our Managing Partner for Commercial Partnerships, Jemima Stoppard, joined a global Meta event in London bringing together agencies, brands and business solution partners. The focus was simple: how to use messaging as a core business strategy to create better customer experiences and turn conversations into sales.
Below, Jemima outlines what has changed, where the opportunity sits, and how Open Partners is preparing clients for Meta’s latest move.
What’s changed?
WhatsApp Business has been available since 2018 and has grown quickly in APAC and LATAM, where it is now a mainstream channel for customer service and commerce. In the UK, adoption has been more limited, even though this is where customers already spend much of their time.
Building on that success, Meta has announced the global launch of the Meta Business Agent Platform. This takes the WhatsApp Business model and extends it across WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and ads, so brands can run consistent AI powered conversations with customers wherever they choose to message.
Crucially, the Meta Business Agent Platform is also the analytics engine. It captures and analyses what customers say and do in these conversations in one place, so brands can see the questions people ask, where they drop out, which prompts convert and how messaging contributes to sales, leads and service efficiency over time.
What brands and their customers can expect
Meta’s messaging channels are moving from simple business‑to‑customer communication to a 24/7 sales and service environment. An AI agent can now answer questions, act as a personal shopper, book appointments, take payments and close sales in a single thread. When needed, the AI can hand over to a human agent without breaking the conversation.
Customer journeys that previously jumped between ads, websites and apps can instead stay inside one branded thread. Features such as business usernames, video calling in chat and native checkout mean Meta’s apps can now handle the full journey from discovery to purchase and after‑sales care.
With the analytics built into the platform, every interaction can be measured. Brands can use live and historical data to refine scripts, remove friction and continually improve performance.
Images via Meta
The opportunity for brands
Meta shared results from 500 enterprises already using whatsapp business messenger at scale giving an average of 275% ROI over three years, higher lead conversion rates, and reduced agent times. These outcomes are a strong indication of what brands can aim for as similar journeys roll out across all Meta platforms.
The Meta Business Agent Platform is being launched globally, with the UK highlighted as the next major market to scale business messaging. For UK brands, this is a clear early‑mover opportunity.
As Mark Zuckerberg commented, “The Meta Business Agent gives every business, regardless of size, an agent to talk to customers and help run its operations…a clothing store in Birmingham and a bakery in São Paulo can now offer the same always available, highly personalised experience as a major brand.”
The Open Partners perspective
For Open Partners, the Meta Business Agent Platform aligns closely with our Agency of Next proposition. It brings together media, data and creative, powered by AI and automation, inside the channels customers already use every day.
Meta has been clear that partners like Open Partners will play a central role in go‑to‑market, joint account planning, unmanaged account growth, implementation and AI‑enabled delivery. That creates room for agencies that can design, run and optimise these messaging ecosystems end to end.
The opportunity goes well beyond media activation, as the solution can help brands connect paid media into high‑intent messaging journeys, understand how those journeys drive revenue and cost savings, and use first‑party interaction data to inform future communications, sales strategies, product innovation and brand building.
Because analytics is built into the platform, we can also turn conversation data into clear reporting for different stakeholders, showing what customers ask for, where demand builds, where friction appears and what that means for future planning and budgets.
What’s next?
At Open Partners, we will work closely with Meta to identify where business messaging across Meta’s platforms can unlock growth, from lead generation and qualification through to customer care deflection and in‑thread sales, and will proactively bring forward opportunities to clients where there is a strong business case.
For clients who choose to adopt, we will integrate the Meta Business Agent Platform into existing strategies, combining media, data and creative to design conversational journeys that feel natural to users while maximising conversion, average order value and lifetime value.
As an outcomes focused agency, we will also help clients build robust measurement frameworks so that the impact of WhatsApp and wider business messaging is visible at board level, not just in channel metrics but in revenue, profitability and customer experience.
