WhatsApp is set to introduce significant advertising features that allow businesses to reach users while keeping personal chats ad-free. This marks a major shift for the messaging app, which has maintained a largely ad-free experience since 2014.

The company stressed that users who only use WhatsApp for personal messaging will see no changes to their experience, as all new features are confined to the Updates tab that can

They will appear in only one part of the Meta-owned messaging service, it said. The move is potentially lucrative, while raising questions about user privacy.