WhatsApp Confirms Plans to Introduce Ads in Updates Tab, Promises No Disruption to Private Chats
WhatsApp has officially announced a major shift in its business strategy by unveiling plans to introduce advertisements for the first time in its Updates tab, marking the platform’s boldest monetization effort since its inception.
The Meta-owned messaging giant made the revelation on Monday, stressing that users’ personal chats will remain ad-free, with end-to-end encryption fully intact.
New Ad Features Coming to WhatsApp
Three main monetization features will soon roll out:
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Paid Channel Subscriptions – Creators can offer exclusive content to subscribers.
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Promoted Channels in Discovery – Brands and businesses can pay to appear prominently in the channel discovery section.
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Ads in Status – WhatsApp’s version of Instagram Stories will now feature targeted advertisements.
WhatsApp emphasized that these features will be confined to the Updates tab, which houses Channels and Status, used by over 1.5 billion people daily. The company reassured users that this section can be disabled via app settings.
“We’ve been talking about our plans to build a business that does not interrupt your personal chats for years and we believe the Updates tab is the right place for these new features to work,” WhatsApp said.
Privacy Protection Still a Priority
Nikila Srinivasan, Meta’s Vice President of Product Management, reaffirmed the company’s commitment to privacy:
“Your personal messages, calls, and statuses will remain end-to-end encrypted. This means no one, not even us, can see or hear them, and they cannot be used for ads.”
WhatsApp further promised:
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No phone number sales or data sharing with advertisers.
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No targeting based on private chats, calls, or group activity.
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Ads will only use basic information like user’s country, city, language, and activity in Updates.
A Carefully Measured Expansion
This marks a significant but cautious move for WhatsApp, which has faced global scrutiny over any monetization attempt since Meta’s acquisition in 2014. Previous limited ad testing occurred only on WhatsApp Status in select markets.