WhatsApp is currently developing a new feature to label the content posted on its broadcast channels with artificial intelligence labels. As reported by the industry tipster WABetaInfo recently, it is an easy-to-use platform to put the burden on channel admins who will be able to check media files and apply the AI label according to what they see in the media files. Although it is still in the early stages of development and testing, it is expected to be released in various regions of the world because of the legal requirement to disclose AI labels on the content published on the digital channel.
The newly introduced AI label option for channel admins is also seen in WhatsApp beta for Android 2.26.31.1 and indicates a general trend towards digital content transparency as brands turn to generative tools for their marketing. For example, when a channel administrator creates a post (promotional or generated material) they can simply tap and hold the message on the interface and find a notification option that says "Add AI content label," which subsequently attaches a permanent indicator visible to all participating subscribers. Importantly, once the administrative label is applied to a post it is not removed, so viewers see the content of their favorite creators and brands in real time.
WhatsApp is clearly concentrating on visual content rather than text messages, as industry analysts said. We already have an idea that the platform might not accept plain text as a label and focus on media in the form of images and videos as its primary feature. This technical approach is very much in line with the content moderation strategy of Meta that the parent company has taken with Instagram, and WhatsApp is just the latest ecosystem to have this standardized identification system. What's more, it is also reported that the new feature will not only be targeting Meta AI users but other AI tools as well so that there will be content that can be generated by others.
The development of this product follows a separate incident that briefly attracted attention to WhatsApp. WhatsApp had an unexpected problem that locked a number of users out of the chat app and even temporarily stopped the ability to send or read the messages and other features of WhatsApp. WhatsApp recognized the problem and quickly identified it as a technical issue on their own servers and introduced the fix in the same hour to get the WhatsApp users back where they were.
