WhatsApp has been talking about launching in-app advertising for many years, but today the change has finally arrived. Ads in WhatsApp are now official, here are the details of what to expect—including the finer points of how your privacy is impacted.
Two types of ads are launching in WhatsApp today
Today Meta announced via the official WhatsApp blog that ads are rolling out to all users now.
Ads are launching as part of the Updates tab inside the app.
This means they won’t be part of your private chats—at least for now.
Instead, you’ll see ads integrated with the Stories-like ‘Status’ feature as well as the Channels list.
Here’s an example from Meta of what this will look like:
Essentially, if you’ve used Instagram Stories and seen ads there, the experience will now be very similar inside WhatsApp’s Status feature.
And in the Channels list, sponsored channels will now appear.
WhatsApp says it has built the ad feature “in the most private way possible.” That’s a big claim.
Diving into the details though, there are several pieces of personal data WhatsApp will use to show you ads.
Per their own blog post, in-app advertising will be informed by:
- “your country or city”
- “language”
- “the Channels you’re following”
- “how you interact with the ads you see”
Top comment by Tudor
Ads in my messages app, the most private, personalized and important space of my phone?
This is not acceptable.
Additionally, if you’ve added WhatsApp to Accounts Center, your ad preferences from other Meta platforms will be used to inform what ads you see in WhatsApp.
9to5Mac’s Take
For now, these two types of ads are the only ones launching today in WhatsApp. But now that ads are finally a part of the messaging app, I’ll be especially curious to see how they might evolve into the future.
The timing of iOS 26 adding WhatsApp-like features to Apple’s Messages app certainly is a funny coincidence.
What do you think of WhatsApp gaining ads? Let us know in the comments.
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