India is leading the world in terms of how people and businesses have embraced messaging as the better way to get things done, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a virtual address as he announced new features for WhatsApp at the Meta’s Annual Conversations in Mumbai on Wednesday.

“I am particularly excited to be hosting this year's event in India, a country that's at the forefront of a lot of what we're going to talk about today,” he said, adding that he sees messaging is a big opportunity for businesses, something that Meta is very focused on as a company.

Zuckerberg added that the company is looking at building more tools for its messaging products — WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram DMs — based on the trends and how not just people, but also businesses are using these apps.

“Now, this is how we've continued to innovate with our messaging formats, our group chats and broadcast channels,” he said.

In his address, Zuckerberg announced the launch of WhatsApp flows — a new offering on the messaging app that gives businesses the ability to create customised experiences within chat threads.

“So, for example, a bank can build a way for customers to book an appointment to open a new account, a food delivery service can build a way to place any order from any of their partner restaurants or an airline can build a way to check in for a flight and pick up a seat, all without having to leave the chat thread,” Zuckerberg said.

This, he added, will help businesses on WhatsApp build their open experiences, while making it easy for consumers to interact with them without having to jump between apps or websites.

Zuckerberg also announced another feature in this direction where consumers can pay for things within a chat thread using various payment options. This payment solution was first launched in Brazil and Singapore and is now being introduced in India.

“With payments in India, we're going to support other payment methods as well, including all UPI apps. This is going to make it even easier for people to pay Indian businesses within a WhatsApp chat using whatever method they prefer,” Zuckerberg added.

He also announced the launch of Meta Verified for businesses using WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, which will be rolled out in the coming months.

Businesses that subscribe will get a verified badge, account support, impersonation protection and additional features that will help people find them more easily. On WhatsApp, this includes premium features such as a custom web page and increased multi-device support.

“Now, we've been hearing from a lot of businesses that they're very eager to build more credibility and get greater visibility. So I'm excited to start rolling out Meta Verified in the coming months. And we're going to continue to evolve what's included in the toolkit to make sure that we're bringing the best value to businesses,” Zuckerberg added.

However, he did not specify whether this will be only a paid feature like it is on Instagram currently.

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First Published:Sept 20, 2023 11:20 AM IST