Will Cathcart, head of Meta's subsidiary, announced the launch of WhatsApp channels with subscriptions and advertising. He says the rollout of artificial intelligence does not compromise the privacy of encrypted messaging.

Meta has unveiled plans to introduce adverts on WhatsApp, breaking a promise by the messaging app’s co-founder never to do so. In a major update announced on Monday, WhatsApp said it will roll out paid advertising to its 3bn monthly users over the next few months.

Meta is finally bringing ads on WhatsApp, eleven years after the social media giant acquired the platform, whose founders avoided advertising.

But people who have chosen to link their WhatsApp account to Facebook or Instagram will see more personalised ads. The new ad features will appear in a section called Updates, which is a separate tab at the bottom of the app. WhatsApp claims to have 1.5 billion users globally.

Staying in the AI race is crucial for Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft, with the technology likely to be the future for the industry.

No time to scroll through long WhatsApp chats? Ask Meta AI to summarize them for you.As reported by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is testing a new "Summarize with Meta AI" feature for individual and group chats on Android.

Meta AI users are hitting the Share button without realizing that it can post their private chats into the public Discover feed.

Elsewhere, Google has recently been ramping up its campaign against ad blockers, blocking some users from watching YouTube videos and preventing playback. In the most recent update, the company is reportedly slowing down videos for users with ad blockers installed on their devices.

Meta AI is going viral for showing user chats that should not be public, so be sure to fix your privacy settings ASAP.

As AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Gemini continue to raise the bar, Meta AI is joining the league with new capabilities being tested within WhatsApp.