What’s more important than sending a message? It’s the person you’re sending it to, of course. Today we’re making it easier to privately add and manage your contacts on WhatsApp, from any device you may be using.

Until now, the only place you were able to add contacts was from your mobile device, by either typing in a phone number or scanning a QR code. Soon, you’ll be able to add and manage contacts from the comfort of your keyboard on WhatsApp Web and Windows – and eventually other linked devices.

We’re also introducing a new choice to save a contact exclusively to WhatsApp. These WhatsApp contacts are ideal for when you are sharing your phone with others or if you want to separate personal and business contacts when managing more than one WhatsApp account on your phone.

Contacts you save to WhatsApp will be restored in case you ever lose your phone or change devices.

These updates will also make it possible to eventually manage and save contacts by usernames. Usernames on WhatsApp will add an extra degree of privacy so that you don’t need to share your phone number when messaging someone. Today’s just one crucial step to making that reality possible and we’ll have more to share when it’s ready.

To go deeper in the tech on how we’ve built this with your security in mind, click here.

WhatsApp Status is the best way to stay connected with friends and family and now we’re making it even better. With status likes, private mentions and the ability to reshare a status you’re mentioned in, we’re making it easier to reach the people who matter most.

Status likes: Let someone know you’re thinking of them, or enjoying their status with a single tap of the button. Status likes are private and don’t have a counter, so only the person whose status you liked can see them as a in the list of viewers.

Private mentions: Make sure those closest to you see your status, and let them reshare it easily with their audience, by privately mentioning them. Those you mention will be notified privately, and the mention won’t be shown on your status.

These features are now starting to roll out, and will be available globally to users soon.

We’ll be bringing more features to Status and the Updates tab over the next few months to make it easier to stay closest to those who matter most. Let us know what you think!

Conversations on WhatsApp should always feel fun and expressive and today, we're rolling out filters and backgrounds to make your video calls even more engaging. With these new effects, you can now change your background or add a filter during a video call for a more personal touch.

Filters are designed to help you create a more playful atmosphere, whether that’s adding a splash of color or creating a more artistic feel for your video. With backgrounds, you can keep your surroundings private and transport yourself to a cozy coffee shop or comfortable living room for a more clean and polished look.

With 10 filters and 10 backgrounds to choose from, you can select and mix a wide range of options to create a unique look. Filter options include Warm, Cool, Black & White, Light leak, Dreamy, Prism light, Fisheye, Vintage TV, Frosted glass and Duo tone. Background options include Blur, Living room, Office, Cafe, Pebbles, Foodie, Smoosh, Beach, Sunset, Celebration and Forest.

We’re also adding Touch up and Low Light options that can help you feel more confident and comfortable by naturally enhancing the look and brightness of your environment, making your video calls more vibrant and enjoyable.

To access these during a 1:1 or group video call, select the effects icons on top right of the screen to see the selection of filters and backgrounds and choose the one that suits your mood.

These effects will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.

We’re a year into bringing Meta AI to WhatsApp and we continue to hear really positive feedback from people who are using this new technology. At Meta Connect today, we announced a new set of updates that will make it possible to talk to Meta AI in real-time with your voice or send it photos to edit. These updates will make it easier for more people to explore their ideas, improve their chats, and try new things.

• Talk to me: You can now speak to Meta AI and it will talk back. Just press down on the waveform button to ask a question and let Meta AI explain something you’re curious about. As this feature starts to roll out, you’ll also be able to choose from different voice options including from celebrities from around the world.

• Look at this: You can now send a photo to Meta AI and get answers about the world around you. For example, you can take a picture of a menu in a foreign language and ask for a translation, or take a picture of a plant and ask how to take care of it.

• Edit my photo: Meta AI can now help you edit your own photo such as adding, removing, or changing something. For example, you can remove a random stranger from the background or change colors on an object to see something in a new light.

We’re also expanding our business AIs, so more people will get faster service when talking to a business. We’re starting with thousands of businesses using the WhatsApp Business app and will look to expand these services over the coming year. You can learn more here.

Meta AI continues to rapidly advance and we look forward to bringing people all over the world new features. Please continue to share your feedback with us and tag us on Threads to share interesting ways you’re using Meta AI.

People love using stickers to express themselves and add personality and fun to their chats. Sometimes a sticker can communicate emotions and moods better than words ever could and today, we’re adding new ways for you to personalize and enjoy stickers.

New and searchable GIPHY stickers: We’ve partnered with GIPHY to bring their extensive collection of stickers directly to WhatsApp. This integration lets you find and share relevant and engaging stickers, without having to leave the app. To access these stickers, simply tap the sticker icon and search using text or emoji.

Custom Sticker Maker is now available on Android so you can easily create, edit and share your own stickers. iOS users have been loving this feature and we’re excited to expand it to everyone. Turn your photos into personalized stickers, or customize existing ones using editing tools like crop, text, and draw. Once created, the stickers are automatically saved in the sticker tray for easy access so you can share with family and friends.

AI Stickers: If you can’t find the perfect sticker for the moment, don’t forget that you can also use Meta AI to create more custom stickers. At this time, AI sticker creation is available on iPhone and Android in the U.S. Android users can also test creating AI stickers in Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia.

Sticker Organization: You’ll now be able to easily discover new sticker packs from WhatsApp by previewing them in the sticker tray below your downloaded ones. To organize your sticker tray, you can also tap and hold a sticker to move to top or delete it.

It’s been a long time since we’ve written about the momentum of WhatsApp and today we have some exciting news to share. As of this month, WhatsApp now has 100 million users in the United States.

This milestone has been a long time coming and it proves that WhatsApp is the solution to the cross platform divide in America. No matter if you have an iPhone or Android, people want private and secure messaging that works well for everyone and that’s what we do best.

Whether you’re trying to organize your college groups on campus, keep up with your extended family, or bring together an entire community - we’re grateful to all of you for using WhatsApp. We can’t wait to keep bringing you great new features in the months ahead.

Meta AI on WhatsApp. New Features; More languages and countries.

As Meta AI continues to improve with new useful features and languages, we’re excited to bring this helpful and creative assistant to more countries starting today.

Continued International Expansion

Meta AI can help you with answers, ideas and inspiration. It’s now available in 22 countries, with the newest additions rolling out now including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Cameroon in several new languages including French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish with more to come.

Imagine Edit

We are also making it easier to create your ideal image with Meta AI by making it possible to easily change and edit an image, including adding or removing objects within it. To start, type “imagine” to describe your image and then respond to what Meta AI provides by asking it to add, subtract, or animate the image to your liking. Imagine Edit is available in English at first, with more languages coming soon.

Imagine Yourself

If you’ve ever wondered what you might look like as a superhero, or wanted to try out different hair or outfits - you can now imagine yourself doing just about anything. Simply type “Imagine me” in chats with Meta AI to get started. After a quick set up, you’ll be able to add a prompt like “Imagine me in a retro pink and green ski outfit” and Meta AI will generate an image of you in that personalized scene. You can reset or delete your setup photos at any time. This is available in beta in the U.S. for now, with more languages and countries coming soon.

We are excited to continue to share new capabilities and advancements from Meta AI with more and more people through WhatsApp. As always, your personal messages and calls remain end-to-end encrypted, meaning not even WhatsApp or Meta can see or listen to them. The team is working on improving responses to Meta AI rapidly and introduces improvements every two weeks. We would love to hear from you, and see how Meta AI has helped you be more creative and expressive. Tag us on Threads and share what you’ve imagined.

Focusing on your favorites just got a lot easier on WhatsApp. Starting today, you can quickly find the people and groups that matter most at the top of your calls tab and as a filter for your chats.

Whether it’s your family group chat or your best friend, your ‘favorites’ will be the same across your chats and calls, so you can speed dial them from your calls tab too.

To add to your ‘favorites’:

• From your chats screen, select the ‘favorites’ filter, and select your contacts or groups there.
• From the calls tab, tap ‘Add favorite’ and select your contacts or groups.
• Or, simply manage your ‘favorites’ in your settings by going to Settings > Favorites > Add to Favorites, and you can reorder them at any time.

We’re rolling out to users today, and will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.

Since we brought Calling to WhatsApp back in 2015, we’ve continued to improve it with the introduction of group calls, video calls, and multi-platform support.

Today we have several updates that will make calls across your devices even bigger and better, rolling out over the next few weeks:

• Screen sharing with audio: Ideal for watching videos together, now when you share your screen, you can share your audio too
• More participants: Now you can have up to 32 people on a video call across all your devices
• Speaker spotlight: Easily see who’s talking with the speaker automatically highlighted and appearing first on screen

We also remain relentlessly focused on audio and video quality, for clearer calls no matter where you are. We recently launched MLow codec which improves call reliability. Calls made on mobile devices benefit from improved noise and echo cancellation, making it easier to have calls in noisy environments, and video calls have higher resolution for those with faster connections. Audio is crisper overall, even if you have poor network connectivity or are using an older device. You can read more about the MLow codec and listen to the difference in audio quality here.

We’ll continue making improvements to calling on WhatsApp so you can make the best quality, private calls wherever you are in the world.

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.