C_NCENTRATE #1035

Busy one. Conferences, met and interviewed retail Dragon, Theo Paphitis, about networking and AI for entrepreneurs, and officially launched ‘POTATO’, the new UK tech WhatsApp group (nearly full already!). Big announcement to come on Tuesday…reply if you’d like in.

Apologies to those who couldn’t get a seat at TNN, we’ve rejigged the seating plan and have opened up another 50 spaces for Google / NotebookLM (July 17), so try again for tickets if you couldn’t get one before. You can also book now for Shopify (September 18). More announcing soon too that will rock your WORLD.

OpenAI changed its ChatGPT business pricing while internal docs leaked showing models develop “personas” without explicit instruction. That followed a $200M U.S. defence contract, even as Microsoft-OpenAI tensions escalated. Anthropic’s alignment claims took a hit after researchers found Claude can deceive, steal, and blackmail. Meta, never one to miss the privacy plot, leaked personal user info through its public AI feed. Scale AI lost OpenAI as a customer, just as its Meta tie-up rattled enterprise clients. Rivals pounced. Turns out Meta had talked to Perplexity first, before investing in Scale. Power consolidation disguised as innovation.Salesforce raised prices and pushed new AI features. Klarna’s CEO claimed it’s now an AI-powered super app, and Payabli grabbed $28M to build Stripe-for-verticals.

More AI, but a different tone; the narrative’s shifting fast: from marvel to liability with the White House flagging bioweapons risk from OpenAI as AI’s carbon footprint came under fire. Google gave AI Mode back-and-forth voice and spread Veo-3 across YouTube and Shorts.

YouTube Shorts quietly hit 200 billion daily views, showing TikTok copy-pasting still works. Facebook converted all videos to Reels. Threads finally added Fediverse and keyword search — six months late and still catching up. Midjourney dropped its first AI video model, as Disney and Universal circled with lawyers. In Europe, the Commission called out AliExpress for failing to enforce basic DSA compliance. The FCC moved closer to a Trump-aligned majority; which means the platform-regulator standoff is entering a new phase.

While the world lost it’s head over an non-peer reviewed MIT swipe at GenAI tools melting your critical thinking ability, Zuck and co pushed the button on ads and quite a bit more too for WhatsApp. Sure no-one asked for this but could it be as bad as it has been so many times in the past?

Probably.

Ads are now live in the Updates tab, appearing in Status and Channels, with Meta confirming that personal data will be used for targeting. The shift is limited for now but unmistakable in direction. Oh, unless you’re in Europe, you’ll get this thrillfest in 2026.

Ads will not appear inside one-on-one or group chats, and Meta has stated it has “no plans” to change that. Not using words like ‘ever’ tends to be a staging ground rather than a safeguard. WhatsApp’s core experience has long been money for attention equals bad. Now that seems to be ‘evolving’. In parallel, paid subscriptions for promoted Channels are rolling out, reinforcing the platform’s transition toward a more commercial product structure. The models are dizzying.

Meta says the move is about helping businesses “connect more meaningfully” with customers. In practice, this means ads on WhatsApp will draw on Meta’s full cross-platform infrastructure, including targeting capabilities developed on Facebook and Instagram. That data integration is already drawing criticism. Privacy advocates including NOYB have raised concerns that Meta is quietly dismantling WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption promise in favour of an adtech model users never explicitly accepted.

WhatsApp’s user base exceeds 2 billion globally. Monetising even a fraction of that attention represents a huge opportunity. Early investor response has been positive—Meta shares rose on the announcement—though user trust is a harder currency to measure. WhatsApp was acquired in 2014 with a promise never to host ads. That promise no longer holds.

SO WHAT?

WhatsApp is no longer just a secure, ad-free messaging app, it’s now also a discovery and promotion layer within Meta’s wider business ecosystem. For businesses, this opens a new channel in high-engagement markets where WhatsApp is the de facto communications platform. For users, it adds another thing to wade through, that may have some utility. The strategic risk is erosion of trust. WhatsApp’s success has always depended on frictionless communication and a sense of privacy. Even if ads remain outside of personal conversations, the visual presence of targeting inside the app shifts how users relate to the platform. Messaging no longer feels immune from monetisation pressure, and Zuck and co don’t have a long history of holding themselves back when it comes to ad revenue.

[DO] Audit your customers and data practices if you use WhatsApp for service or support. Cross-platform targeting means data liability can rise even when you are not the collector.

[DON’T] Overlook the competition. Telegram, Signal, and Apple’s upcoming RCS extensions are increasingly well-positioned to capture users disillusioned with ad saturation inside core messaging apps. The smart play may not be to push into WhatsApp further if your users want to keep it clear.

▲ Why everyone feels like they’re faking it. /23 mins

This Chinese courier company is out-delivering Amazon. /7 mins

How proof-of-human tech will be big in the next five years. /11 mins

A glue-like, DNA-repairing protein has been found that may be key to slowing aging and preventing diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. /8 mins

San Francisco is about to get £9.8m worth of drones. /13 mins

The FDA just approved a long-lasting HIV prevention injection. /7 mins

Palantir has got a whistleblower, and it’s worse than you thought. /28 mins

There’s a dating site based on…your internet search history(!). /7 mins

How long will pilots be needed? Turns out quite a long time. /18 mins

Three meeting red flags that leaders notice. /5 mins

Bloomberg might have cracked the news quiz with…gambling. /7 mins

More states have been caught sharing health data with big tech. /11 mins

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Paul delivers actionable insights that keep companies ahead of the coming disruptions. As the founder of TBD Group and author of ‘Disruptive Technologies’, he is trusted by global brands, agencies, and when breaking news hits the FT, WSJ, BBC, and CNN ask for his analysis. Find out more and connect with him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.