WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging app, is making a significant change to its business model by introducing advertising features for the first time. Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, announced on Monday that the platform will begin rolling out ads within its Updates tab, which includes Channels and Status features used by 1.5 billion people daily.
This marks a major departure from WhatsApp’s traditionally ad-free experience. Since Meta acquired the platform in 2014, it has resisted placing ads in users’ chat feeds, keeping the app focused on private, encrypted communication. However, with increasing pressure to monetize its massive user base of over two billion monthly active users, Meta is now tapping into WhatsApp’s commercial potential.
The company is introducing three new monetization tools: paid subscriptions for Channels, promoted Channels within the Discovery directory, and advertisements embedded in Status updates—WhatsApp’s version of Instagram Stories. Importantly, these features will be restricted to the Updates tab, and personal messaging will remain untouched.
“We’ve been talking about our plans to build a business that does not interrupt your personal chats for years,” WhatsApp said in a statement. “We believe the Updates tab is the right place for these new features to work.”
WhatsApp has assured users that privacy remains a top priority. All personal messages, calls, and statuses will remain end-to-end encrypted. “No one, not even us, can see or hear them, and they cannot be used for ads,” said Nikila Srinivasan, Meta’s Vice President of Product Management.
Meta has also pledged not to sell or share users’ phone numbers with advertisers. Ad targeting will rely only on basic, non-personal information such as location, device language, and activity within the Updates tab.
While WhatsApp users won’t see display ads in their private chats, the gradual rollout of ads in Channels and Status is a notable pivot for Meta. The company did not provide a specific timeline but indicated the features would appear in different regions over the coming months.
This move represents a delicate balancing act between revenue generation and maintaining user trust a challenge WhatsApp must navigate carefully as it enters the world of digital advertising.
