Meta unveils Ads on WhatsApp in major monetization shift

Meta Platforms Inc. has announced it will begin rolling out advertisements on WhatsApp, the world’s largest messaging app, marking a sharp reversal from its long-standing anti-advertising stance.

According to FT, the new ad placements will appear in the Status section of WhatsApp — under the Updates tab — and will be visible to users globally within the next few months.

The company says this change will not affect personal chat areas, keeping ads away from the core messaging experience.

“This was a longtime request from businesses,” said Nikila Srinivasan, WhatsApp’s VP of business messaging. “They care about preserving people’s personal spaces.”

WhatsApp, which has over 3 billion monthly active users, also serves more than 200 million businesses globally.

Meta sees this as an opportunity to monetize a platform that has long resisted commercial intrusion.

Before Meta (then Facebook) acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, co-founder Brian Acton declared a strict “No ads! No games! No gimmicks!” philosophy — a stance that held for over a decade.

But now, with Meta looking to boost revenue amid a shifting tech landscape, the company says the time is right.

“A year and a half ago, we introduced the Updates tab,” Srinivasan explained. “If you don’t use that tab, you won’t see ads.”

The Status feature, which functions like Instagram Stories, allows users to share disappearing photos or videos.

Meta claims it’s the most-used stories product in the world, with over 1.5 billion daily users.

Alongside ads, WhatsApp will roll out premium Channels — content streams users can subscribe to for a monthly fee.

Creators and businesses can also pay for channel promotion, increasing visibility in curated feeds.

While chats, calls, and statuses will remain end-to-end encrypted, Meta will use basic user data like device language, location, and user interactions to serve targeted ads.

This advertising expansion follows Meta’s strong Q1 earnings, which outpaced expectations despite fears tied to U.S. economic policies under President Trump.

The company says the move will help diversify its revenue streams beyond Facebook and Instagram.

The update could draw scrutiny from privacy advocates and loyal WhatsApp users, many of whom still value the platform’s clean, ad-free experience.

Still, Meta appears undeterred. With rivals like Telegram and Signal also exploring monetization models, WhatsApp is simply playing catch-up in a booming messaging market.

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