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Meta is launching an AI chatbot on WhatsApp that will help businesses automate tasks such as answering frequently asked questions. Early adopters have reported encouraging results.

This is apparent in the fines US regulators recently levied on banks for employees鈥� improper use of the messaging platform WhatsApp. Regulation by enforcement is becoming a common approach, with crackdowns and penalties on the rise. According to the ABA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) assessed 60% more fines in 2021 than 2020, despite handling fewer cases.

The average daily active users in March across the company鈥檚 鈥淔amily of Apps鈥濃�擣acebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram鈥攚as 3.07 billion, a 7% increase from the previous year. Facebook daily active users and monthly active users rose 5% and 3%, respectively. Shares were up more than 6% in post close trading. They have more than doubled this year. On the up-and-up:.

There have also been reports of scammers impersonating banks on WhatsApp to defraud customers. In January 2024, the official X account of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was hacked and posted misinformation in the regulator鈥檚 name. X blamed the SEC for not having enabled two-factor authentication, a security feature it limited to its paid subscription tier in March 2023.

鈥淚鈥檓 predicting that Meta will make a major announcement about monetizing WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, not via advertising, but via charging businesses for various ways to connect with users,鈥� said Williamson. Listen to the full podcast. This was originally featured in the eMarketer Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.

Meta is banking on AI-driven business messaging tools to monetize WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram DMs, but it鈥檚 still a nascent business in the US. A longer-form resurgence could be a triple win. Platforms, advertisers, and creators would all benefit: Longer videos mean greater time spent, more ad space, and fewer excuses not to share ad revenues.

How Meta got its groove back: The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Reality Labs, WhatsApp, and Threads, forecast revenue of $32 billion to 34.5 billion for the third quarter, which surpasses analysts鈥� $31 billion expectation. The company has returned to double-digit revenue growth, and the stock is up over 160% this year, per CNBC.

US adults prefer SMS to message delivery on another app like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp or via a brand鈥檚 own app, according to an April 2023 Webex by Cisco survey conducted by OnePoll. So while it鈥檚 useful to cultivate a community on social media and to encourage app downloads, sometimes it鈥檚 best to meet consumers where they already are: in their native text messaging app. 5.

WhatsApp, Meta鈥檚 messaging app, suffered a significant outage for two hours, which resulted in spiking global searches for alternative messaging apps. Meta鈥檚 services continued to have outage issues, with Instagram booting off thousands of users and suspending their accounts for no apparent reason. December.

The top 5 Google searches globally last year were YouTube, Facebook, Google, WhatsApp Web, and Amazon, according to SEO company Ahrefs, which indicate people aren鈥檛 using Google primarily for answering questions. Though still a small share of traffic, referrals to brand sites from Perplexity have grown 40% month over month since January, according to research firm BrightEdge. How high will that grow?

Meanwhile, Meta鈥檚 US monthly user base (excluding WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus/Reality Labs) will continue to grow in 2023 after surpassing 200 million last year. The catch is that Instagram now accounts for all that user growth. TikTok鈥檚 future has never been more uncertain. The app will have more than 100 million monthly users in 2023.

Across all of its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more, Meta reported 3.88 billion monthly active users worldwide. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really close to crossing [4 billion],鈥� Williamson said, adding that Meta could even reach this milestone this year. Meta reported an 11% increase in worldwide ad revenues for Q2 2023, showing its rebound from the negative growth seen the previous year.

Why it matters: Instagram has more than one million advertisers and 2.35 billion monthly active users, making it the fourth-largest social media platform, after Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp. Ads, articles, or posts on Instagram prompted 54.8% of Gen Zers to open a new checking account in the 12 months ended April 2022, per our Account Opening Benchmark survey.

Temu, CapCut, TikTok, and Shein, as well as Meta-owned Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, were all ahead of YouTube. YouTube has been around a lot longer in the US than the first four Chinese-linked newcomers, meaning most smartphone users probably already have the app downloaded. This was originally featured in the eMarketer Daily newsletter.

Meta is waiting in the wings: Meta is developing its own genAI models, which are partially trained on data from its own platforms, to power its new Meta AI chatbot for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. In a somewhat surprising twist, Meta has integrated Microsoft鈥檚 Bing search engine into the chatbot.

Well, in terms of what you just brought up, incorporating the chatbots into Messenger and WhatsApp, messaging commerce isn't big here in the US, but it is elsewhere. And a lot of companies that use WhatsApp in particular already have their own chatbots on the app that they use for things like customer service.

Half of the respondents want these updates through mobile channels, including SMS and WhatsApp. Timing is also critical. Over half (57%) of respondents prefer receiving information well ahead of Black Friday, with 36% wanting it as early as possible. Brands should, therefore, engage customers early and leverage various channels, including SMS and social media, to ensure visibility and impact.

The platform鈥檚 US mobile usage more than doubled between 2020 and 2022, which puts it in competition with Meta鈥檚 messaging platforms Messenger and WhatsApp. One key feature of private social media platforms? No ads. But that doesn鈥檛 mean marketers should ignore them. Social listening. As marketers, you should know what people are saying about your brand.

WhatsApp, they're the biggest WhatsApp user population in the United States, which I think has a lot to do with talking to people abroad. And then Instagram, they're also pretty much rivaling Facebook for that at 58.6%. But TikTok is the only non-meta platform that kind of cracks the lineup. Other than that,-. Marcus Johnson:. In terms of? Paola Flores-Marquez:.

But Meta鈥檚 implementation of AI into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp makes the company a 鈥渄ark horse鈥� in the AI race because of its massive scale, said Enberg. Meta only needs 43% of US Facebook users to use the tech monthly in order for it to reach ChatGPT鈥檚 scale. 鈥淎s Meta continues to scale Meta AI, that will eventually provide advertisers with new surfaces to reach consumers,鈥� Enberg said.

Through high-budget campaigns highlighting privacy-related features like encryption (WhatsApp), or by rolling out innovative features like monitoring the dark web for customers鈥� data (Capital One), these companies have gotten into consumers鈥� good graces. They鈥檝e also lit a fire under their competition that will burn throughout 2023.

Meta鈥檚 independent oversight panel issued a report that recommended changes to its misinformation policy while pointing out the company鈥檚 failure to address the impact of its social media platforms鈥擣acebook, Instagram, WhatsApp鈥攐n public health and human rights, per The Verge.

The UK鈥檚 CMA forced Meta to sell animated gif search engine Giphy in October, concluding that the deal would give its properties, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, an unfair advantage over social media competitors. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved to block Meta鈥檚 acquisition of rival VR fitness app Supernatural in August, citing Facebook鈥檚 鈥渋nnovation by acquisition鈥� strategy.

Meta is designing AI chatbots for Messenger and WhatsApp. Last week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg previewed AI agents for Meta鈥檚 messaging services during an internal all-hands meeting. Meanwhile, Meta鈥檚 BlenderBot 3, which runs on its open-source OPT-175B language model, has been in prototype since August 2022. Instagram is reportedly developing an AI chatbot.

Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Reddit accounts aren鈥檛 as common in the province, according to an August 2022 Leger and Ressac poll. But Quebec is ahead of English Canada in Messenger adoption. Users who are exclusive to Messenger must also have a Facebook account, so the messaging app drives up the utility of Facebook across the board.