On June 12th, I was invited on Pro TV's evening news to explain a shift that is starting to reshape the job market: more and more companies are putting AI assistants on WhatsApp to handle customers around the clock — and trimming staff in the process.
The conversations now happen on WhatsApp on purpose — it's the platform people already use with friends and family, so it feels friendlier than a corporate form. On it, customers can buy plane tickets or check where their parcel is. At a travel agency, an AI assistant now runs those WhatsApp conversations instead of a person: you give it your details and it finds your flights.
The search has become conversational. Instead of filling in departure, destination and dates, you simply say "we want to go to Greece for a week in August" — the way the trip actually starts in your head — and the assistant refines from there. Seconds later the results show up in a shared WhatsApp group you can pass to the friends you're travelling with. Another travel company's assistant confirms the booking and walks you through check-in. The same approach is spreading across hospitality.
"There's nothing extraordinary behind it. You should think of artificial intelligence as a brain with access to several of a company's information systems. When I ask how much I owe on a given invoice, the AI behind it connects to the company's database and serves the answer to me on WhatsApp. It's no different from a chatbot on the web or an assistant on the phone."
The flip side: fewer roles
Digitalization like this is convenient, but it comes with a cost: as assistants take over routine conversations, companies need fewer people on the front desk. That's the part of the story worth watching — not the novelty of chatting with a bot, but what it does to entry-level customer-service jobs.
A word of caution
One practical warning I left viewers with: attackers are used to approaching their victims on WhatsApp too. Continue a conversation only if you started it, and never hand over your card details to anyone in chat.