Reason for this Session

Michael is back to show us how nativeMsg is moving the market from experimentation towards deployment.

The RCS barriers are coming down. However, the RCS ecosystem is complex; TikTok and WhatsApp are ‘simple’ by comparison.

The RCS for Business recipe is not fully baked; to claim there are no growing pains is false. The unique differences between Apple and Android only surface when testing to fully understand how each will deliver the RCS for Business Experience, OS version numbers matter.

Success hinges on the details, essential is a partner with experience in the details of RCS, not simply charging for transport over their API.

And to every carrier vested in RCS, start using it with your customers! EDUCATION of both consumers and brands is critical at the moment. The lack of action here calls into question the commitment to RCS by the carrier community.

Welcome Back

I open the discussion with Michael on, why am I not seeing RCS campaigns?

Michael highlights a couple of things:

• Price sensitivity between RCS and SMS. This is complex, using Twilio as an example, they align SMS/MMS and RCS Rich / Rich Media pricing for low volumes. While for a brand with high SMS volume, so pricing could be as low as 0.0007, RCS Rich at 0.0083 is high. There could be volume discounts on RCS Rich, but its early days…
• What numbers can receive RCS? Is device detection enabled?

Michael brings it down to one overriding issue, education / awareness. Within the industry we’ve been talking about RCS since 2007. While brand outreach has been less than customer centric. Some vendors focus on their APIs rather than the experience impact, or hyperbole on RCS being SMS 2.0, without a clear evolution.

Michael highlighted Saks Fifth Avenue has an RCS campaign. He sees the missed opportunities in the campaign that could take advantage of RCS features. This is the strength of nativeMsg, RCS is what they do, rather then being an increment on an existing SMS spend.

Michael highlights an important consideration. RCS is a new industry, there are new approvals required, new technologies that are similar yet different to the web, new pricing, new restrictions (see T-Mobile fees for messages over 5MB). All this needs to be understood by the brands, that are simply getting up to speed at the moment.

RCS is a New Industry

When I look at Instagram, or Tiktok, or WhatsApp campaigns, they start with the community (users), and have integrated offers across advertising, store, AI agents (automations), etc.

It’s all centered on the existing web / app experience. That hook makes it easy for the brands to create campaigns to meet their objectives. RCS is trying to fast forward through the teething pains of a new industry. The bottlenecks are real, and can not be skipped over, rather understood and solved.

This framing helped me understand the magnitude of the problem facing a brand wanting to use RCS. And why we’ll see adoption through 2026 be slower than that claimed by the usual aggregators.

Testing versus Launch

Testing RCS is easy, while launch requires full brand verification and launch approval from Google and carriers before going live to ensure compliance and authenticity.

The main difference between RCS and 10DLC is a logo and hero image, however, the brands still have to got through the RCS process, despite what 10DLC processes they have completed. I know this frustrates brands and is an example of the necessary optimization improvements that are currently happening. As Michael said, this is a new industry, little is documented, carriers have not documented their requirements nor given examples of what they will approve / not-approve to the brands.

Remember with Instagram, or Tiktok, or WhatsApp its just one entity, not multiple.

Failure to Launch Properly

Michael explained existing SMS campaigns are being converted to RCS, like Saks Fifth Avenue, it’s an easy upsell as it includes the brand’s logo. BUT it’s just SMS with a brand logo. Its not taking advantage of all the RCS features and functions, like carousels and rich cards. Here a telco using RCS for its brand communications could help educate the market on the capabilities and share customer impact (performance numbers).

nativeMsg are also working on employee communications using RCS, a closed community, with lower risk compared to communicating with customers. Some of the early chatbots, think before voiceAI, focused on employee communications as well.

In the US there is no conversational pricing for RCS. However, we’ve seen WhatsApp move away from conversational pricing, and rather adopt per message based on categories (Marketing, Utility, Auth) in the range of 1-8c. With customer initiated utility messages being potentially free.

Getting to the Use Cases

We saw recently at a Google RCS event, a use case on fan engagement. I made reference to the work of Apifonica with European football clubs in selling more season tickets using SMS and voice, that drove the business case. We need to get to that point with use cases to accelerate RCS adoption.

Michael highlighted RCS enables web-like measurements within the messaging app. It’s another example of the learning curve brands need to go though in learning how to replicate their web experiences within the messaging app.

I drew an analogy between AI Agents and RCS, adding voiceAI to a SIP trunk is easy, BUT telcos lack the expertise to help a business craft a voiceAI agent tuned to their business. Hence the importance of RCS partners that can help businesses understand the outcomes RCS makes possible given their existing experience with the web.

You can see in the video I’m struggling to identify a specialized marketing agency that would consider working with the committee infrastructure of RCS, versus the relative simplicity of a single entity like Instagram, Tiktok, or WhatsApp,

Michael hints at work being announced in 2026 that looks to place RCS across multiple roles within organizations. I took that to mean adding RCS to Google Analytics. He wasn’t specific, but until Google becomes that one stop shop on performance measurement, I feel we’re trapped in the operated by committee hell.

RCS on Apple versus Android

Some of the differences include layout, different image size requirements, ratios, how buttons and quick replies work, how urls appear, how much text is required to avoid resizing a box, also what size should the video be that is also acceptable for the carrier. There are a surprising number of nuances, and the brands need training so RCS looks good and consistent across devices. RCS needs a layout tool, like we saw in the early days on the mobile web.

This again highlights the importance of the partner helping the brand format its campaign so it renders across platforms. It remind me of the days getting my website to render across Firefox, Microsoft, and Chrome.

Michael highlights the problem facing brands is there are many vendors selling RCS through an API, but few understand RCS in detail so it works for brands with a good, consistent experience for customers across both OS.

Integrations

We moved onto integrations, e.g. AI. WhatsApp requires brands use their AI. The same is essentially true on Facebook Ads with Advantage+ Campaigns, and brands do not seem to care. As long as it works, it’s good enough.

Michael highlights for an enterprise that has developed their own AI model, RCS should be a natural fit.

Michael also highlighted all the B2B RCS use cases, like stock check, re-ordering, etc.. Where the app-like capabilities of RCS will work well.

The loyalty and hospitality industry are replacing apps with WhatsApp. And that could also be an opportunity for RCS

Wrapping up

Brand and customer education is the gap, we must realize RCS is a new industry, its not an easy increment on SMS.

RCS is not as mature as SMS.

There is no upgrade path from 10DLC to RCS.

RCS can be thought of as apps, more than just text messages.

nativeMsg is moving the market from experimentation towards deployment. The devil is in the details on how RCS renders across devices. And understanding its about app experiences. Copy WhatsApp, but hide the committee, make a brand’s experience simple and atomic.