It’s finally happening — ads are officially coming to WhatsApp. Meta announced today that it’s rolling out ads within the Updates tab, which hosts Status and Channels. For years, Meta insisted it would find a way to monetize WhatsApp without invading personal chats. This is its attempt at walking that line.
The Updates tab has exploded in popularity, now reportedly used by 1.5 billion people daily. And Meta’s plan is to tap into that traffic through ads in Status updates and Promoted Channels, letting businesses showcase products or services and allowing users to discover new creators or brands. Alongside this, paid Channel subscriptions will let followers pay for exclusive content from creators or organizations they follow.
The company is emphasizing privacy, promising that personal messages, calls, and group chats remain end-to-end encrypted. Ads won’t be based on private chat content. Instead, they’ll use limited info like your country, language, followed Channels, and ad interactions. If you’ve linked your WhatsApp to Meta’s Accounts Center, your Instagram and Facebook ad preferences might also factor in.
It’s worth noting that while this won’t affect your regular conversations now, this is the first significant step Meta’s taken toward monetizing WhatsApp at scale. Many users (myself included) might be wary of where this leads — as history has shown, what starts in one corner of an app often expands elsewhere.
Rollout begins over the next several months. If you mostly stick to personal chats, you might not notice a thing for now. But for creators, businesses, and advertisers, this is Meta’s way of finally turning WhatsApp’s massive user base into a revenue stream.
