why business AI agents are Big Tech’s next product battleground

A customer sends a WhatsApp message to a local store asking for a product. They will receive an answer within seconds.

The product they are looking for is in stock. Or, if not, an alternative is recommended to them.

Welcome to the next generation of customer service bots – and the latest battleground between the world’s biggest tech companies.

Major tech companies are now pouring billions of dollars into artificial intelligence (AI) agents: systems capable of autonomous decision-making and task execution. The value of the global market for agentic AI is expected to rise from $10.9 billion in 2026 to a whopping $182.9 billion in 2033.

At the annual Conversations conference in London this month, Meta unveiled Business Agent, an AI system that can answer customer queries, qualify sales leads, manage bookings and process transactions directly within platforms such as WhatsApp.

For small businesses that don’t have the staff or resources to provide 24-hour customer support, the appeal is obvious. Larger organizations can integrate the technology into existing sales, booking and customer management systems.

After spending two decades transforming the advertising industry, Meta’s move may seem like a natural progression. But there’s more at stake than another tech giant automating customer service.

Converting attention into transaction

Most of us know Meta as the conglomerate behind the social media platforms Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram.

But Mark Zuckerberg’s business, which reached $200 billion in revenue last year, has long been built around advertising. The key is to understand the audience, capture their attention and then give companies the opportunity to reach the right people with the right message at the right time.

Meta’s Business Agent now moves the business to that transaction moment that follows the ad, click or message.

It’s the point where a customer is already wondering what to buy, whether to book, or how to solve a problem.

This means that Meta has started to look for a place within the customer relationship itself: whether it concerns answering questions, presenting options, organizing follow-up actions or making the next step easier for the shopper.

It also explains why AI agents have become such a hotly contested space for tech companies. Companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta all started from very different corners of the market, but increasingly their ambitions are all coming together here.

Microsoft and Amazon Web Services are leveraging their massive cloud infrastructure to integrate autonomous agents directly into existing enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software such as Dynamics 365.

OpenAI is aggressively pushing custom, multi-agent frameworks that allow companies to deploy custom “GPTs” to handle complex, cross-departmental operations.

Meanwhile, Google is integrating agentic capabilities directly into its dominant search and workspace tools, with the aim of capturing intent before a user even leaves the browser’s search bar.

Meta’s route seems especially logical because many of those interactions already take place on the messaging platforms.

Just think of a restaurant that can accept bookings via WhatsApp or a fashion label that can handle product questions via Instagram. For Meta, its agent can convert these exchanges into a more fully automated commercial process.

Who really wins?

For small businesses, the benefits are clear. AI agents provide capabilities that were once the preserve of banks, airlines, and other large organizations that could build sophisticated customer service systems on their own.

They can answer routine questions, remember product details, respond in multiple languages ​​and free up staff to focus on tasks that still require human judgment, such as handling complaints.

But convenience comes with a trade-off.

The more useful an AI agent becomes, the more influence it has on the interaction itself. It helps determine what information customers receive, what products are recommended, and how they move from inquiry to purchase.

At the same time, each interaction provides the platform owner with valuable insight into what customers want, where they hesitate, and what ultimately leads to a sale.

For many companies, that may seem like a fair exchange. But over time, the balance of power may begin to shift.

As more customer interactions are mediated by AI, companies risk becoming increasingly dependent on platforms they do not control.

Customers, meanwhile, can enjoy faster responses and a more seamless experience. Less visible is the role these platforms play in shaping those interactions – and the commercial value they derive from them.

How profoundly AI agents will shake up global commerce remains to be seen. But early signs indicate they will do more than just automate customer service.

They could accelerate a shift in power away from the companies that own products and services and toward the platforms that increasingly mediate the relationships on which these companies depend.