WhatsApp deepens business play with ads, payments, services | Advertising

At its second annual Business Summit held in Mumbai on 16 September 2025, WhatsApp announced a slate of features. These are aimed at tightening its grip on how Indian businesses communicate with customers, run campaigns, and handle transactions.

The updates span advertising, payments, customer support, and government services—marking a push to position the platform as more than just a messaging tool.

India remains WhatsApp’s largest market globally. With approximately 500 million user base, it is no wonder that it remains central to the company’s efforts to scale its presence here by business solutions.

A Kantar report this year found that 91% of Indian online adults chat with organisations weekly on the platform. That frequency has turned WhatsApp into a critical channel for consumer engagement, one that Meta is now formalising with tools to support both small enterprises and large corporates.

Centralising campaigns and AI optimisation

One of the biggest updates is the integration of WhatsApp campaigns into Meta’s Ads Manager. Businesses in India will now be able to create and manage marketing activity across WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram from a single dashboard. Once subscriber lists are uploaded, marketers can either manually select messages or let Meta’s AI systems, including Advantage+, optimise placements and budgets.

The pitch to advertisers is clear: efficiency and reach in one place. For consumer brands accustomed to running fragmented campaigns, the centralisation is designed to reduce duplication of creative assets and enable data-driven allocation of spend.

WhatsApp is also leaning on the Updates tab, used by 1.5 billion people daily, to expand monetisation. Ads in Status, promoted channels, and subscription features are being introduced gradually in India. Early adopters include Maruti Suzuki, Air India, and Flipkart. Media entities such as Jio Hotstar have already experimented with promoted channels.

Bhuvan Dheer, executive director, marketing, Maruti Suzuki India, noted, “We have been using WhatsApp extensively for driving business growth. Ads on WhatsApp Status will further help us drive discovery and sales of our products and services.”

Air India is betting on similar outcomes. Sunil Suresh, chief marketing officer, Air India Limited, said, “WhatsApp’s new Ads in status offering aligns with Air India’s vision of digital-first transformation, where advertising is not just about visibility, but about fostering real-time connections and elevating customer journeys through intuitive, technology-led touchpoints.”

The framing from both brands underlines WhatsApp’s attempt to sell Status ads not as mere digital billboards, but as entry points to commerce and customer service.

Packing in a punch

For small businesses and mom-and-pop owners, flexibility is being enhanced. They can now use the WhatsApp Business App alongside the WhatsApp Business Platform without switching numbers. The app remains available for day-to-day conversations, while the platform API can be deployed when campaigns trigger spikes in customer queries or when automation is needed.

This dual access is designed to ease the transition for SMEs scaling operations, many of whom may be reluctant to shift entirely to the API model.

The company is also extending payments functionality within the WhatsApp Business App. Merchants can now generate QR codes with one tap, allowing customers to pay directly through WhatsApp with their chosen method. The feature aims to simplify transaction closures inside the app, potentially reducing cart abandonment and friction in the sales funnel.

The move reflects broader competition in India’s digital payments space, where players from UPI-first wallets to e-commerce platforms are vying for transaction volume. Embedding payments within WhatsApp Business strengthens the stickiness of the platform for merchants who already rely on it for outreach.

Calls and AI-driven support

Customer support is another area of expansion. Larger businesses on the WhatsApp Business Platform can now be called directly from the app, and vice versa, with voice and eventually video options available. This is positioned as a solution for complex queries that cannot be resolved through chat.

WhatsApp is also enabling AI-assisted support. Businesses can pair voice calling with AI assistants to handle high query volumes. While this could improve efficiency, the shift also raises questions about consumer comfort with machine-led conversations in high-stakes scenarios such as healthcare or travel.

The challenge for brands will be balancing customer convenience with concerns about over-commercialisation of what is still primarily a personal messaging app.

WhatsApp’s use is extending beyond commerce. State governments including Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu are deploying official chatbots to deliver citizen services. The Andhra Pradesh government’s ‘Mana Mitra’ chatbot now offers over 700 services, has reached 4 million citizens, and supports multiple regional languages.

Arun Srinivas, managing director and country head, Meta in India, framed the expansion as both commercial and civic, “Every day, businesses of all sizes are leveraging WhatsApp to deliver faster and more impactful customer experiences. With our latest tools and features, we are confident that businesses will unlock stronger ROI, build deeper and more personal connections with customers, and scale successfully.”

He added that the same infrastructure is enabling citizens to buy metro tickets, recharge passes, and pay bills. “However, there is a need to build an ecosystem where people have access to essential services in each state right at their fingertips,” Srinivas said.

Tightly bound

For India’s marketing and adtech ecosystem, WhatsApp’s announcements represent a tightening integration into the Meta advertising machine. The expansion of Status ads and centralised campaign management strengthens Meta’s walled-garden strategy, while payment and support features bring the platform closer to being an end-to-end commerce channel.

The challenge for brands, however, will be to balance customer convenience with concerns about over-commercialisation of what is still primarily a personal messaging app. As government agencies join in, WhatsApp is blurring the line between chat as private space and chat as a service hub.

The stakes are high: with billions of daily users, any shift in consumer sentiment could have outsized consequences. But for now, WhatsApp appears determined to make its Business tools indispensable to both brands and public institutions in India.

What’s next will depend on whether WhatsApp can hold off challengers like Google’s RCS, which promises richer native messaging on Android, and Telegram, which is expanding into payments and commerce. For now, WhatsApp’s scale in India gives it a clear lead—but as the lines blur between chat, ads, and transactions, consumer tolerance for commercial intrusion may prove the ultimate test.

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