You can now convert your personal account to a business account on Telegram

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Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced on Wednesday that users of the chat app with personal accounts can now convert them to business accounts. This allows users to list information such as location and opening hours, which could be useful for small cafe or shop owners.

Other features for business accounts include organizing chats with color labels, using automatic greetings and away messages, and shortcuts for quick replies. Durov said on his channel that Telegram plans to release more business features this month, including ways to integrate AI-powered chatbots into customer service.

“Telegram Business accounts will now be able to seamlessly add chatbots as invisible secretaries to respond to all or specific chats. Using AI, these chatbots will completely eliminate customer service automation. “We can take it to a new level,” he said.

With these new features, Telegram is trying to compete with WhatsApp Business, which surpassed 200 million monthly active users last year. His WhatsApp, owned by Meta, introduced a number of business-friendly features last year, including personalized customer messages and flows to complete e-commerce transactions without leaving the app.

Over the past two years, Telegram has focused on expanding its business through premium subscriptions, self-custodial crypto wallets, and premium username auctions. The chat app, which has more than 800 million users worldwide, plans to launch an advertising platform this month with a revenue-sharing program for channels.