It has been a long time coming — seven years since Meta first announced its plan to do so, in fact — but ads are starting to appear in WhatsApp as of Monday. They'll only be visible on the Updates tab and the company says those who use the app only to chat with family and friends really won't see any change to their WhatsApp experience.

Meta rolls out WhatsApp ads and Channel subscriptions as part of a strategy to make money from the app.

Ads in WhatsApp will be shown only in the app's Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people each day.