Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced on Wednesday that users of the chat app with personal accounts now have the option to convert them into business accounts by paying a monthly fee.
This move allows users to include information such as location and opening hours, catering to the needs of small cafes and shop owners.
Among the features introduced for business accounts are the ability to organize chats with color labels, utilize automatic greetings or away messages, and employ shortcuts for quick replies. Durov shared on his channel that Telegram has plans to roll out additional business features this month, including the integration of AI-powered chatbots for customer service.
“Telegram Business accounts will be able to seamlessly add chatbots as their invisible secretaries to respond to all or certain chats. With AI, these chatbots can bring customer service automation to an entirely new level,” Durov stated.
Telegram’s latest features position it as a competitor to WhatsApp Business, which surpassed 200 million monthly active users last year. Notably, Telegram has opted for a subscription fee model for business features, diverging from WhatsApp’s revenue generation strategy, which relies on the nature and frequency of conversations.
Meta-owned WhatsApp introduced several business-oriented features in the past year, including personalized customer messages and streamlined e-commerce transactions within the app.
In recent years, Telegram has concentrated on expanding its business offerings through premium subscriptions, a self-custodial crypto wallet, and the auctioning of premium usernames. With over 800 million users globally, the chat app is set to launch its advertising platform this month, accompanied by a revenue-sharing program for channels.
