Meta has had an impact on the startup ecosystem last week with news that was expected by many, but unexpected by others. Starting in January 2026, chatbots will stop working on WhatsApp. A measure that will radically transform the way startups, SMEs and companies interact with their customers in the most used messaging app in Latin America.
Roby Peñacastro, CEO of Leadsales, explains that, for insiders of the Meta ecosystem, this announcement was not a surprise: “We had already seen it in the roadmap presented at the WhatsApp Business Summit in Sao Paulo. For us it was more of a call to navigate with an advantage in what WhatsApp is building.”
However, for most companies, outside the circle of partners, the announcement generated uncertainty: “Many said: Is it worth getting into WhatsApp if they are going to change the rules of the game all the time?”, Roby Peñacastro mentions to Startups Latam.
The disappearance of chatbots
According to Peñacastro, the change in the platform responds to two key factors:
- WhatsApp seeks to enrich its own AI agents, powered by Llama, limiting the ability of third parties to generate automated agents within the Meta platform.
- Currently, the Meta platform is used by more than a billion users, generating large-scale adoption of costs and dangers of saturation on the platform due to chatbots.
The impact will be significant. Startups and companies that offer generalist virtual agents for business assistance or personalized attention will be the most affected. On the other hand, those SMEs and companies that use WhatsApp as a sales tool will be able to continue operating within the permitted limits. “If your business focuses on serving customers directly, there is not so much of a problem. But if your use case is general, with multiple users, that is where the rules change,” clarifies Peñacastro.
The Leadsales Scoops
Maintaining human interaction and being a source of conversation are some of the specific objectives that Leadsales intends to maintain, and although the changes do not directly affect the company, they have decided to expand their horizons: integrate the development of TikTok Business Messaging, an alternative channel that will allow companies to diversify their sales and digital service strategy.
“We are trying to diversify, not so much because of the Meta risk, but because clients are asking us to explore other channels that bring good traffic to businesses,” Roby shares.
