Nairobi, June 4 -- Kenyan businesses using WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook now eye a sales boost as Meta rolls out artificial intelligence-powered agents that can text customers, recommend products and close purchases on behalf of employees.

The three social media platforms' American parent firm, Meta, is rolling out the "Business Agents" globally this week, targeting small and medium-sized businesses.

The AI agents will be able to answer customer questions, recommend products, negotiate prices, book appointments and escalate conversations to human staff when necessary.

For now, traders using Meta's Business tools only get retail chatbots that rely on scripted responses and predefined menus to respond to customer messages.

AI agents ...