I talked with a professor of advertising to make sense of what this means for all of us who use those social media platforms.

After the tech giant announced it would begin to include ads in WhatsApp’s Updates tab, which is used by roughly 1.5 million people per day, Signal president Meredith Whittaker took to X to lure users to her messaging tool: “Use Signal,” she wrote. “We promise, no AI clutter, no surveillance ads—whatever the rest of the industry does.”

Meta has confirmed it will introduce ads to WhatsApp, ending a long-standing “no ads” policy and marking a major shift for the world’s most-used messaging app. The advertising rollout will begin globally over the next few months.

Meta Platforms Inc. will begin showing ads inside of its WhatsApp messaging service, opening a new potential revenue stream while the company invests heavily in artificial intelligence and other long-term projects.

End-to-end encryption is still guaranteed, and Meta also said that if users only use the app to call or message their contacts, there will be “no change to [the] experience at all,” though for many, this promise simply isn’t enough.

An Evercore analyst notes that Meta has a strong track record with its monetization initiatives across brands.

While privacy concerns have made monetizing the app a challenge, Meta is again betting on ads to address its revenue goals.

The cofounders of WhatsApp resisted ads in the app for years, including after the company was acquired by Meta for $22 billion in 2014. Brian Acton and Jan Koum left the company in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and on Monday Meta introduced ads in the “Status” feature as well as sponsored Channels in the the “Updates” tab of WhatsApp.