Meta-owned WhatsApp today announced new features for its Updates tab—the section that hosts both Channels and Status. Over the past two years, WhatsApp has reworked this tab to become a hub for discovering fresh content. It now serves 1.5 billion daily users worldwide, the company said.
What’s New in the Updates Tab
- Channel Subscriptions: Subscribe to your favorite Channels for a monthly fee to receive exclusive updates and content.
- Promoted Channels: Discover new Channels more easily via recommendations in the directory. Channel admins will now have new tools to increase the reach and visibility of their Channels.
- Ads in Status: Find ads in the Status section and message businesses directly about promoted products or services. Ads appear only in Status, not in personal chats.
These additions are confined to the Updates tab—your personal chats, group conversations, and calls remain unchanged.
Built With Privacy in Mind
All new additions, WhatsApp says, were created with a strong focus on preserving user privacy:
- End-to-end encryption protects every personal message, call, and group chat—no one, not even WhatsApp, can see or hear them.
- Ads are targeted using only limited data: country or city, language, Channels you follow, and ad interactions.
- If you’ve linked WhatsApp to Meta’s Accounts Center, your ad preferences and information from other Meta apps may be used.
- Phone numbers are never shared or sold to advertisers, and private chats won’t influence ad selection.
WhatsApp has long discussed plans to build a business model that keeps personal messaging separate, and believes the Updates tab is the ideal place for these new tools.
Availability
These features will begin rolling out to Android and iOS users globally, starting in the next couple of months.