The stock of Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms (META +4.26%) was an outlier in a good way on Wednesday. The social media king’s equity rose by more than 4%, largely on the news that it had rolled out its business-oriented artificial intelligence (AI) offering worldwide.

Agent of change?

That offering, sensibly titled Meta Business Agent, is a conversational tool that harnesses agentic AI to handle a range of client interactions. This is now available worldwide to companies of all sizes, Meta wrote in a press release, and can also be accessed via Instagram.

In a way, Meta Business Agent already has a considerable user base. Meta said that over 1 million enterprises were using earlier chatbot versions of the system in the company’s WhatsApp and Messenger apps.

The platform is free for businesses to launch, at least initially. The company plans to introduce paid subscription plans in the near future.

The social media giant also trumpeted the launch of the Meta Business Agent Platform, which, in its words, “gives businesses the infrastructure to build, customize, and deploy their Business Agent at scale.”

Meta Platforms

Today’s Change

(4.26%) $25.49

Current Price

$623.12

Much to prove

While the enterprise AI market is already crowded and competitive, Meta is sure to make some inroads with Business Agent simply because of the ease of adaptability — in its press release, the company stressed that it was essentially a bolt-on solution for businesses with Instagram pages, for example, or a presence on WhatsApp.

That said, this is relatively new territory for Meta, so we’ll see whether it can carve out meaningful market share with the platform. Investors should keep a keen eye on take-up — particularly given that Meta is aiming to expend a whopping $125 billion (at least) in capex, much of it on AI data center build-outs, and will need to demonstrate there’s some tangible return on this spend.