Meta Expands AI Tools for Small Businesses, But Leaves WhatsApp Out

Meta has expanded its AI tools for small businesses, allowing companies to connect Facebook and Instagram accounts, advertising campaigns and Google Workspace applications to Meta AI for performance analysis, reporting and competitive research.

The tools are being rolled out through meta.ai, the Meta AI mobile app and a new desktop application. Businesses can connect their Instagram and Facebook accounts as well as Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Slides, allowing Meta AI to analyse information from those platforms. The expansion comes with a notable omission for African businesses: WhatsApp Business is not currently included. That is significant in sub-Saharan Africa, where Meta says 93% of Meta AI prompts are made through WhatsApp.

What Meta AI Can Do for Businesses

Businesses can use Meta AI to analyse their own social media and advertising data, including identifying Instagram content that generates the strongest engagement and assessing the performance of advertising campaigns.

The assistant can also use publicly available content from other brands on Facebook and Instagram to support competitive analysis.

Users can turn the resulting analysis into reports, presentations and spreadsheets. Meta also allows businesses to schedule recurring tasks, such as weekly performance summaries.

The Google Workspace integration extends the tool beyond Meta’s own platforms, allowing businesses to work with information stored in Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Slides.

On Mac, the desktop application also supports screen sharing, allowing Meta AI to respond to information displayed on the user’s screen. Dictation is available across Mac applications.

WhatsApp Creates a Gap for African SMEs

The absence of WhatsApp Business is more significant in African markets, where the messaging platform is widely used by small businesses to communicate with customers, receive orders and manage sales.

Meta’s own data puts WhatsApp at 93% of its AI prompts in sub-Saharan Africa. The platform has also become an important channel for African businesses operating outside traditional e-commerce infrastructure.

That creates a potential limitation for Meta’s business AI tools. An assistant designed to analyse business performance has access to Facebook, Instagram and Google Workspace data, but not the WhatsApp conversations and transactions through which many small businesses interact with customers.

The desktop focus also raises questions about how well the new tools fit mobile-first markets.

While Meta AI is available through mobile applications, the new desktop application and its screen-sharing feature are more closely aligned with conventional computer-based workflows. Screen sharing is currently available on Mac, which further limits the relevance of that feature in markets where smartphones are the primary business devices.

Meta Uses Nigerian SME Data to Frame Rollout

Meta is positioning the expansion around Nigeria, citing commissioned research that estimates 14 million Nigerian SMEs used its platforms in 2025 and that these businesses contributed $2 billion to the country’s GDP.

The company also says its digital infrastructure investments generated $820 million in economic value in Nigeria in 2025, while 81% of Nigerian businesses surveyed said Meta platforms had helped expand their customer base.

These figures come from research commissioned by Meta and should therefore be viewed in that context.

A similar study in South Africa, conducted by Public First, estimated that AI could contribute R528 billion to the country's GDP and that 910,000 South African SMEs were using Meta platforms.

The research highlights the scale of Meta’s business footprint in African markets, while the new AI tools are aimed at increasing the amount of business activity managed through its platforms.

Pricing Remains Unclear

Meta says businesses can get started with the new features at no cost, but the company has not specified which functions will remain free or how much additional access will cost as the service expands through Meta One.

That leaves an important commercial question for small businesses considering adoption.

Meta has already been testing paid AI plans for creators and businesses in several markets, including Morocco. As the new business tools expand, African SMEs will need to weigh the value of the additional analytics and automation against any subscription costs.

For now, the rollout gives businesses new ways to analyse their Meta and Google Workspace data, but its usefulness for African SMEs will depend partly on whether Meta eventually brings WhatsApp Business into the same system.