WhatsApp and artificial intelligence
WhatsApp Cloud API
The Cloud API is the WhatsApp Business Platform API that software uses to send and receive WhatsApp messages. Meta hosts it in the cloud: outgoing messages go through the Graph API and incoming ones arrive by webhook. It replaced the On-Premises API, which Meta retired on 23 October 2025.
Also known asCloud API · WhatsApp Business Cloud API · Meta's cloud API for WhatsApp
How it works
It works in two directions. To send, the program makes a request with the destination number and the content: a text, a photo, some buttons or a message template. To receive, Meta notifies the program's server with a webhook every time a message comes in or the status of a sent one changes, from delivered to read. The data travels encrypted, and the API itself scales usage within the rate limits.
Until 2025 there was another route, the On-Premises API, which the business installed on its own servers. Meta retired it: its last version stopped being available on 23 October 2025 and it can no longer send messages. Today, anyone who says "the WhatsApp API" means the Cloud API, the piece that moves messages within the WhatsApp Business Platform. Phone numbers, templates and billing are managed with a different one, the Business Management API.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that connecting to the Cloud API comes with a bot or a shared inbox. It comes with neither: it is the pipe. Who answers, how messages are split between the porters' lodge, maintenance or the kitchen, and what gets automated is decided by the software connected to it. The difference from answering on a phone is covered in WhatsApp Business or the API.
Sources
Related terms
- WhatsApp Business PlatformThe WhatsApp Business Platform is Meta's platform for organisations to handle WhatsApp at scale from their own software, through the Cloud API, instead of by hand from the WhatsApp Business app on a phone. It comes with its own system of approved templates and sending rules.
- WebhookA webhook is an automatic notice that one system sends to another system's web address when something happens, without the second one having to ask. On WhatsApp, Meta uses webhooks to deliver every incoming message, and the status of outgoing ones, to the residence's software.