Project Hatch aims to book restaurants, manage calendars, and shop on your behalf, with a premium tier potentially costing up to $200 a month
Meta is building an AI that doesn’t just answer your questions. It does your errands. The company’s internal project, codenamed “Hatch,” is an AI personal assistant designed to autonomously handle tasks like booking appointments, shopping online, and syncing with your email and calendar, all accessible through WhatsApp and Instagram.
The personal agent represents a significant escalation from Meta’s existing chatbot capabilities, which have been embedded across its platforms since 2023. Where Meta AI currently helps you draft a message or summarize a thread, Hatch is designed to act on your behalf.
From chatbots to autonomous agents #
The consumer-facing Hatch project sits alongside a broader AI push that’s already live in the business world. Meta launched its Business Agent globally in early June 2026, rolling it out across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger to help companies automate customer support, schedule appointments, recommend products, and close sales.
That launch happened at Meta’s Conversations event in London, where Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision that goes well beyond customer service scripts. He hinted at aspirations for AI agents capable of managing entire businesses and eventually providing what he called “personal superintelligence.”
More than 1 million businesses had already adopted early versions of Meta’s AI agents before the June rollout. Early trials ran in India, Mexico, and Brazil, three markets where WhatsApp is essentially a utility, not just an app.
Hatch expanded its trials in August 2026, adding features like shopping integration and calendar management. The agent is reportedly designed to work smoothly with third-party applications, meaning it could eventually coordinate across your email, ride-hailing apps, and restaurant reservation platforms without you needing to open any of them.
What Hatch actually does #
Customization is a central feature. Users can reportedly tailor the agent’s behavior, setting preferences for communication style, task priorities, and safety guardrails. Meta appears to be building in safety measures to prevent the agent from taking actions a user hasn’t authorized, a necessary precaution when your AI has access to your payment methods and personal schedule.
The underlying technology draws on Meta’s advanced AI models, including Llama and Muse Spark. These power not just Hatch but the broader Meta AI ecosystem, which is accessible through WhatsApp, Instagram, and a standalone app. Productivity updates deployed in July 2026 enhanced the platform’s capabilities for both everyday tasks and deeper research functions.
Internal discussions have floated a premium pricing tier of up to $200 per month for Hatch’s full feature set.
The competitive landscape #
What Meta has that the others mostly don’t is distribution. WhatsApp has more than 2 billion users. Instagram isn’t far behind. If Hatch ships as a native feature inside those apps, it arrives pre-installed in the daily habits of roughly a third of the planet.
For Meta’s revenue model, the implications are significant. The company has historically relied on advertising. Premium AI subscriptions represent a fundamentally different revenue stream, one based on utility rather than attention. Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our