Meta has announced that WhatsApp will soon begin displaying ads for the first time, marking a major departure from the platform’s long-standing ad-free model. The ads will appear in the “Updates” tab — not in personal chats — preserving user privacy.
Unveiled on June 17, this move comes more than a decade after Meta acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion. The app’s original founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, were strongly against advertising and eventually left the company over such disagreements.
Also Read: WhatsApp Introduces Smart Media Quality Controls to Save Data and Storage
The new “status ads” will function like Instagram Stories, showing temporary content from businesses that disappears after 24 hours. Meta insists that messages and calls will remain fully encrypted and unaffected by this change.
Meta is also monetising WhatsApp’s Channels feature, allowing businesses to boost visibility, send broadcasts, and charge subscriptions — with Meta set to take a 10% cut of these in the future.
With over 3 billion monthly users, Meta’s goal is clear: turn WhatsApp into a powerful business tool without disrupting the private messaging experience users rely on.
