A customer browsing a brand’s Instagram page late at night may have questions about a product, need help choosing the right option or want to know when an order will arrive.

If the business cannot respond immediately, that moment of interest could turn into a lost sale.

For direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, the challenge is not just attracting customers but staying available when they are ready to engage. Meta wants to address this through AI-powered conversations on WhatsApp, turning the messaging platform into a storefront that remains open beyond business hours.

At TechSparks 2026, Piyush Vaidya, Enterprise Sales Specialist for India at Meta, presented Meta Business Agent, a tool designed to help businesses answer customer queries, recommend products and guide shoppers through their purchase journey.

The proposition is to bring product discovery, customer support and commerce closer together, without requiring customers to move between multiple platforms.

Retailers face several obstacles along the path to purchase, including cart abandonment, limited personalisation, uncertainty about products and the cost of customer support. Vaidya said Meta’s research found that 91% of users drop off after adding products to their carts.

Meta Business Agent aims to reduce this friction by allowing customers to ask questions and explore products through WhatsApp conversations. Businesses can connect their product catalogues and provide instructions that guide how the agent responds. For more complicated queries, the conversation can be handed over to a human representative.

The agent can also retain conversational context, helping businesses offer more relevant responses when customers return.

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