WhatsApp is testing a new feature that will place messages from banks, airlines and other large businesses in a separate folder. The company is introducing this feature to address the problem of finding individual and group chats when the inbox is filled with excessive business messages. Under the new feature, messages from large businesses will automatically be moved to the Offers and Updates folder after a certain amount of time. WhatsApp says it is testing the message moving time at various intervals within 24 hours. Users can turn this feature off if they want and keep business messages in their main inbox. However, there will be no user-defined time frame for when messages are moved to the folder. According to Meta, discount codes, delivery updates, and other business notifications will automatically move to the ‘Offers and Updates’ folder after a few hours. This is expected to help make the main inbox less crowded.
WhatsApp is currently testing this feature with a few large businesses. Messages from small businesses and personal WhatsApp Business accounts are not included in this feature. It is speculated that in the future, messages from small businesses may also be placed in this folder. WhatsApp has already implemented various measures to control unwanted messages from businesses. It provides a feature that allows users to unsubscribe from marketing messages and limits the number of broadcast messages that businesses can send.
Additionally, a feature is being tested that will allow for additional limits on business messages if users do not respond. Despite these efforts, the problem of many users’ inboxes becoming cluttered as the number of business messages increases continues. Although the new feature is expected to provide some relief in message management, it has been analyzed that its impact may be limited unless users are given full control over separating business messages from the main inbox. WhatsApp has been offering its AI Business Agent service globally since June. More than one million businesses are currently using it. The number of businesses using AI agents for sales, marketing, and customer service is expected to increase further in the coming months. WhatsApp, which currently has over 3 billion monthly active users, is facing the challenge of balancing personal and business messaging. Otherwise, experts say, users risk being bombarded with more unwanted messages as the number of business messages sent through AI increases.
