Eighteen months ago Google switched off messaging on Business Profiles. The chat button, the inbox, your call history, gone overnight in July 2024. A lot of owners assumed that was the end of messaging customers through Google.
It wasn’t. Google just brought messaging back, and the new version is a different animal. Instead of a free inbox you have to staff, you get a Gemini-powered AI agent that answers customer questions on your profile around the clock and pulls you in only when it needs a human. Here’s the real picture, because the chatter online is half wrong.
The timeline, straight
- July 2024: Google shut down native Business Messages. Free chat, message inbox, and call history all removed.
- Early 2025: Google added WhatsApp and SMS options. Someone taps “message” on your listing and it opens a text or WhatsApp thread to your phone.
- Now: Native messaging is back, rebuilt around an AI agent that lives on your profile.
What the new AI agent actually does
Google’s product is called Business Agent. It’s a conversational AI, powered by Gemini, that chats with people in your brand’s voice using your business info and your website. You can set a welcome message, add up to three conversation starters, upload your logo, and match your tone.
The inbox splits into two buckets: messages the AI handled on its own, and messages that need your attention. There’s a customer-handoff toggle that pings you when the agent hits something it can’t answer. That’s the whole pitch. An assistant that fields the easy 80% at 11pm on a Saturday and taps you in for the 20% that needs a human.
There’s also a Promote option that lets you run Google Search ads where customers message your agent straight from the ad. That’s the paid layer, and it’s where Google clearly wants this to go.
Read the fine print before you celebrate
This is rolling out in stages, not live for every profile yet. The early version is clearly a pilot. In the profiles that have it, the settings panel literally tells you to email Google to change your setup, which is not how a finished, self-serve product works. Google’s official Business Agent is rolling out in the US first, and the full messaging dashboard is showing up for a slice of profiles in testing. Check your dashboard. If you have it, great. If you don’t, it’s coming.
Two more honest notes:
- An AI agent will say wrong things sometimes. It will. If it tells a customer you’re open when you’re closed, or quotes a price you don’t offer, that’s on your business, not Google’s. This is not “set it and forget it.” It needs to be set up carefully and watched. The dashboard gives you a QR code to preview the customer view and chat with your own agent, so use it. Ask it the five questions a real customer would ask before you trust it with real ones.
- The free WhatsApp and SMS option still exists, and it works right now. If the AI agent hasn’t reached you yet, turn that on under the contact settings of your profile so you’re not leaving the message button dead.
What I’d do this week
- Open your Business Profile dashboard and look for the Messages or Business Agent option. If it’s there, set it up: welcome message, conversation starters, logo, handoff on.
- Don’t trust it blind. Scan the QR code, chat with your own agent, and ask it five questions a real customer would ask. Fix the answers before customers find the wrong ones.
- No agent yet? Turn on WhatsApp or SMS today so customers can reach you while you wait.
Google spent a decade teaching buyers to message businesses directly. They killed the free tool, then rebuilt it smarter and started wiring it to ad spend. The owners who set this up carefully, and actually watch what their agent says, are going to pull leads off Google while their competitors still think messaging is dead.
When our clients win, we win. Setting up an AI agent that answers right, instead of confidently wrong, is exactly the kind of thing we handle.