WhatsApp is a way of life for people and businesses and we’re excited to keep building tools to make experiences better for both. Today at our global Conversations event in São Paulo we announced several new features that are going to help do just that.

More Options with AIs

We believe AI tools can help businesses get people the help they are looking for and find new products and services as well. We’re introducing ways for any business to use AI on the most popular questions they receive so you can get the answer you’re looking for fast. We’re also integrating AI tools to create an ad to run on Instagram or Facebook and to help make sure businesses are following up with customers that want to hear from them – for example to remind people they left an item in their cart or offer a discount for a purchase they’ve been waiting to make.

Meta Verified Comes to WhatsApp

We’re also beginning to roll out Meta Verified on the WhatsApp Business app in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia. When you see a Meta verified badge, this means a business has registered their information with Meta and is receiving impersonation protection. Businesses using Meta Verified also receive enhanced account support from Meta, and can use WhatsApp across multiple devices for their employees. You will also see the same Meta verified badge for these businesses on their Channel and custom WhatsApp page easily shared on social media and the web. We look forward to expanding this important service to more businesses and countries soon.

Bringing Calling into the Chat with a Larger Business

For those times when you need to talk to someone live, we’re introducing the ability to call larger businesses on WhatsApp in just one tap. If you have a complicated travel request or want to discuss opening a new account with your bank, a quick call might be the best way to get help. We just started testing this feature and will expand it to more businesses in the coming months.

We hope you enjoy these new ways of chatting with businesses on WhatsApp.

Since launching Communities, it’s been exciting to see how people with common interests – neighborhoods, school associations, hobbyists and more – use the feature to keep groups that belong together connected and organized. To help bring communities even closer together, we’re introducing a new way for people to organize events on WhatsApp, and launching organized replies to Announcement Groups so members can respond to important updates from admins.

With events it’s now easier for people to plan their get togethers directly in WhatsApp, whether it’s setting up a virtual meeting or birthday dinner. Anyone can create an event and others can respond so the whole group knows who is coming. Guests can also find the event in the group’s information page, and those going will get an automatic notification when it’s getting close. Events are coming to groups that belong to a Community first, and will roll out to all groups over the coming months.

We’re also bringing replies to Announcement Groups, so admins can hear from their members while keeping these groups an easy place to catch up on what’s happening in your Community. Replies are grouped together and minimized so you can see what others have said in context, and notifications are muted for everyone.

Over the next few months, we’ll keep rolling out new features to Communities and groups so people have more tools to keep their lives organized on WhatsApp. We’ll share more here along with our WhatsApp Channel directly in the app.

Over the last six months, WhatsApp has supported limited testing for one-on-one and group chats with Meta AI as well as AI sticker creation. We are hard at work expanding the ability for more people to explore all that Meta AI has to offer, from right within WhatsApp. Today, Meta AI received numerous upgrades that we will be introducing gradually, including availability in a dozen countries.

• More Places: Meta AI is currently available in English in the U.S., and we’re now making it available in English in more than a dozen new countries, including Australia, Canada, Ghana, Jamaica, Malawi, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe - with more to come.
• Search or Ask Meta AI: You can now ask Meta AI a question right from the search feature at top of your chats. Just start typing and Meta AI will provide suggestions for you to choose or you can keep typing to ask a question in full. Answers about sports, entertainment, and current events are provided by leading search providers.
• Images and Video in a flash: You can now imagine an image and have it appear in an instant. Every few letters will help reveal a new image in real time and even provide a video of creation you can share. This technology relies on the very latest image models from Meta AI released today.

In the coming months, we expect to continue to enhance the performance of Meta AI even more and bring new creative capabilities to WhatsApp. While there is much to be excited about, we know that generative AI won’t always be perfect. We’re eager to hear people’s feedback about how it’s working for you. Tag us on Threads to share interesting images or ways you’re using Meta AI through WhatsApp. We would love to hear from you as we continue down this journey together.

Opening WhatsApp and finding the right conversation should feel quick, seamless, and simple. As people increasingly do more on WhatsApp, it’s more important than ever before to be able to get to your messages fast. That’s why today we’re launching new Chat Filters so you can do that without having to scroll through your full inbox.

To start, you can choose between three filters that will appear at the top of your chat list: All, Unread, Groups, which can be selected with just a tap:

• All: The default view of all your messages.
• Unread: Perfect for when you want to see which conversations you need to catch up on or respond to. It shows messages that are either marked by you as unread or haven’t been opened yet, so you can prioritize your responses.
• Groups: A highly requested feature, now all your group chats will be organized in one place, making it easier to find your favorite ones whether it’s your weekly family dinner discussion or planning your next vacation. This will also show subgroups of Communities.

We believe filters will make it easier for people to stay organized and find their most important conversations and help navigate through messages more efficiently. We’ll continue to build more options to help you focus on what matters most. These are starting to roll out to users today, and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.

We introduced View Once for photos and videos back in 2021 to add another layer of privacy to your messages. Today, we’re excited to announce you can now send a voice message that will disappear once listened to.

For reading out your credit card details to a friend, or when you’re planning a surprise, you can now also share sensitive information over voice message with added peace of mind. For consistency with View Once photos and videos, View Once voice messages are clearly marked with the “one-time” icon and can only be played one time.

As with all your personal messages, WhatsApp protects your voice messages with end-to-end encryption by default, and View Once is just another example of our continued privacy innovation.

View Once voice messages are rolling out globally over the coming days, and we look forward to your feedback. See more information on how they work here.

Earlier this year we rolled out Chat Lock to help people protect their more sensitive conversations. Today we’re launching secret code, an additional way to protect those chats and make them harder to find if someone has access to your phone or you share a phone with someone else.

With a secret code you’ll now be able to set a unique password different from what you use to unlock your phone to give your locked chats an extra layer of privacy. You'll have the option to hide the Locked Chats folder from your chatlist so that they can only be discovered by typing your secret code in the search bar. If that doesn’t suit your needs, you can still choose to have them appear in your chatlist. Whenever there’s a new chat which you want to lock, you can now long press to lock it rather than visiting the chat’s settings.

We’re so happy our community has been loving Chat Lock, and hope that secret code makes it even more useful to them. Secret code starts rolling out today, and in the coming months will be available globally. We’re excited to keep bringing more functions to Chat Lock to help people protect their privacy, let us know what you think.

What’s better than having a WhatsApp account? Well, of course it’s having two.

Today, we’re introducing the ability to have two WhatsApp accounts on Android logged in at the same time. Helpful for switching between accounts – such as your work and personal – now you no longer need to log out each time, carry two phones or worry about messaging from the wrong place.

To set up a second account, you will need a second phone number and SIM card, or a phone that accepts multi-SIM or eSIM. Simply open your WhatsApp settings, click on the arrow next to your name, and click “Add account”. You can control your privacy and notification settings on each account.

As a reminder, only use the official WhatsApp and don’t download imitations or fake versions as a way of getting more accounts on your phone. Your messages are only secure and private when using the official WhatsApp.

Today at the annual Connect conference, Meta announced several AI products and features that will soon be available through WhatsApp.

We are inspired by the possibilities of Generative AI, and how it can help people be more creative, productive, and entertained simply by sending a message. With so many conversations taking place on WhatsApp, we want to help people all over the world access this emerging technology.

To start, we’re introducing three new AI services powered by Meta that represent the first steps in what we expect to be a long path of experimentation for all of us. Starting today, some users can start testing the following in chats with friends and family:

• AI stickers: You can now create a custom sticker that represents a thought or idea that’s just right for your chat.
• AI chats: With Meta’s AIs, you can ask any question to find out more about topics or try and settle a debate in your group chat, including getting the perspective from dozens of characters Meta has created that respond in interesting ways.
• Photorealistic Image Generation: By typing the prompt /imagine, AIs allow you to generate images to represent an idea, place, or person.

For those who are new to the early capabilities of Generative AI, we’ve put together some basics on how these systems work to protect your privacy. The most important thing to know is that your personal messages with friends and family are off limits. AIs can read what is sent to them, but your personal messages remain end-to-end encrypted, so no one else, including Meta, can see them.

In addition, we’re interested in helping businesses improve the quality and speed of services they provide to people through the AI of their choice. We’re working behind the scenes with a few partners now and we’ll have more to say about this in the months to come.

We’ll keep everyone updated in the app as we make these tools available to more people in more languages. We very much look forward to your feedback and hearing about what you create.

Today at our global Conversations event in Mumbai we’re introducing several new features that will help speed up how to get things done with businesses in a WhatsApp chat.

Faster Chat Experiences with Flows

We’re launching Flows so businesses can offer more experiences like quickly choosing your train seat, ordering a meal or booking an appointment – all without leaving your chat. With Flows, businesses will be able to provide rich menus and customizable forms that support different needs. We’ll make Flows available to businesses around the world using the WhatsApp Business Platform in the coming weeks.

Choose your Payments Service

We’re making it easier to complete a purchase directly in the chat. Starting today, people in India can add items to their cart and send a payment using the method of their choice from all supported UPI apps, debit and credit cards, and more. We’re excited to be working with partners Razorpay and PayU to make paying for something as simple as sending a message.

Meta Verified Businesses on WhatsApp

We’re making it possible for businesses to receive verification from Meta, which helps you know you’re chatting with the right business. To become Meta Verified, businesses demonstrate their authenticity to Meta and in return receive a verified badge, enhanced account support and impersonation protection. For businesses interested in signing up, Meta Verified will come with additional premium features including the ability to create a custom WhatsApp page that is easily discoverable via a web search, and multi-device support so multiple employees can respond to customers. We’ll begin testing Meta Verified soon with small businesses using the WhatsApp Business app before introducing it to businesses on the WhatsApp Business Platform in the future.

We’re excited to continue building great features for businesses to improve the customer service and other offerings they provide to people, and look forward to hearing how these new updates help establish connections, build relationships and get more done.

Today we’re excited to launch WhatsApp Channels to over 150 countries and deliver a private way to receive updates that matter to you. We’re welcoming thousands of organizations, sports teams, artists, and thought leaders that people can follow, right within WhatsApp.

If you’re new to Channels, our goal is to build the most private broadcast service available. Channels are separate from your chats, and who you choose to follow is not visible to other followers. We also protect the personal information of both admins and followers.

We’ve appreciated all the positive feedback from our initial start in ten countries. As we expand Channels globally, we’re introducing the following updates:

• Enhanced Directory - you can now find channels to follow that are automatically filtered based on your country. You can also view channels that are new, most active, and popular based on number of followers.
• Reactions - you can react using emojis to give feedback and see a count of total reactions. How you react will not be shown to followers.
• Editing - soon, admins will be able to make changes to their Updates for up to 30 days, when we automatically delete them from our servers.
• Forwarding - whenever you forward an Update to chats or groups it will include a link back to the channel so people can find out more.

This is just the beginning, and we’ll continue to add more features and expand Channels based on feedback we get from users. Over the coming months, we’ll also make it possible for anyone to create a channel.

If you’re looking to hear about more product updates directly from us, we’ve now also launched the official WhatsApp Channel to keep you up-to-date on what we’re building.