Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced the new tools in a video which was exhibited during the event.

The announcement marks a shift for WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service that heavily touts its privacy credentials and has long eschewed the types of targeted advertising tools that underpin Meta's other apps, like Facebook and Instagram.

The social media giant has been introducing commerce and payment features on the app for several years, including "business messaging" tools companies can use to conduct customer service chats and send marketing materials to people who have shared their phone numbers with the companies.

Previously, those tools were blunt instruments, used to send blasts to all users who had opted into receiving the company's outreach.

The new AI tools will use behaviour on Facebook and Instagram to target the messages to those customers most likely to be receptive to them, provided the customers use the same opted-in phone number across accounts.

--Reuters--