We went to London to learn about the future of WhatsApp

In June 2026, Meta invited Jem to Conversations, its fifth annual gathering for businesses building on WhatsApp.

We sent product manager Alex Böhmer and senior engineer Michelle Mitchell, for two days of keynotes, live demos and corridor conversations with the people actually building the WhatsApp Business platform.

With more than a billion conversations between people and businesses across Meta every day, WhatsApp has become a huge priority for the tech giant. Alex and Michelle came back with a stack of insights and tons of conviction.

“It’s no longer debatable that WhatsApp is the place to do business,” says Alex. “We were one of only a handful of African platforms in the room. I hope to see that number grow because conditions on the continent force companies to find innovative solutions.”

What Meta is building, and what it could mean for frontline workers

Meta frames the next few years around what they call the “persistent thread”.

Every interaction between person and business becomes one continuous relationship, instead of a string of disconnected touchpoints. Conversely, the single broadcast blasts they call “one-shot” marketing, is on its way out.

While we’re big fans of that framing, it’s important to be practical. What are the features that make persistent threads possible?

The headline launch: Meta Business Agent.

An AI agent that lives inside the chat, learns from documents and systems, and completes tasks rather than just answering questions. It pulls real information and hands over to a human, with full context, at a moment’s notice.

The potential impact is huge. A deskless worker in SA can’t afford a financial advisor. But an agent inside WhatsApp that knows someone’s pay cycle and spending patterns could answer questions like “If I take R600 now, can I still cover transport and groceries to month-end?”.

“Language is a major barrier for millions of people,” says Alex. “We want to give frontline workers the kind of expertise and guidance that’s normally reserved for people earning ten times what they do. And if they want to type ‘when is my next shift’ into a chatbot, we want to give them the right answer regardless of how they articulate that question.”

Michelle, a prolific voice noter, pointed to the accessibility angle of voice-to-text interaction. “Sometimes innovation means making things that already exist more accessible. Someone who struggles to type can simply speak to their phone and get a real answer back from the agent.”

Calling APIs, richer in-chat experiences and usernames

A new Calling API lets a chat move to a voice call without losing context. So a deskless worker stuck trying understand a deduction in-chat can tap to call someone who already has the full picture.

Meta is also building richer experiences into chat itself: product catalogues with images and pricing, comparisons, suggested replies. For employees using Jem, that moves buying airtime, data and devices from a chat to a full storefront experience, with no new app to download.

Finally, there’s WhatsApp usernames. Much like more typical social media platforms, this means business accounts will be able to assign a specific handle to themselves that people can search for.

For example, if we chose @jemhr, an employer on Jem would be able to tell a new hire to search for us on WhatsApp and register instead of sharing and saving our number manually. It’s a relatively small change that could remove friction for millions of people in the future.

A good time to be building in Africa

Meta’s strongest case studies, like Movida in Brazil and Trendyol in Turkey, come from places where messaging leapfrogged email and apps years ago.

South Africa, like much of the developing world, is one of those places. Our frontline workers have no laptop, no work email and no HR portal. But they have WhatsApp. Jem was built on that reality from day one and we’re excited to leverage Meta’s new features.

We left excited for the future

A recurring point from the stage was that the businesses winning on WhatsApp won’t get there on technology alone, but on the cultures behind it. “We take ownership, we make space to experiment and we stay curious,” adds Alex. “It shows in what we build and how fast we ship. We do feel like leaders in this space.”

“It was really encouraging to hear principles being discussed as best practice for 2026 that already feel second nature at Jem,” says Michelle. “We went there to learn, but it was also a reminder that we got invited on merit, and we’ve got a lot to contribute to these conversations.”

That’s the real takeout from London. Jem bet on WhatsApp years ago because it’s the only way to reach the people we build for. Watching Meta reinforce this to a room full of global enterprises was incredibly validating.

It’s exciting for us, and even more exciting for the frontline employees we’re building for.