WhatsApp Is Making Its Biggest Change In 17 Years—And It’s A High-Stakes Race For Businesses

This article written by Georgia Fearn was originally published on Inc.com.

WhatsApp is offering up one of the most valuable pieces of digital real estate left on the internet: the username.

The Meta-owned messaging app said today that its more than 3 billion users can begin reserving unique usernames, ahead of a broader rollout later this year that will let people connect without first sharing a phone number.

Meta is framing the change as a privacy upgrade. For businesses that use WhatsApp to reach customers, it is also a new handle to claim before someone else does.

“Usernames have been a long-standing request from users,” Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp’s Vice President of Product, said in a statement to Inc. “I’m really excited to finally start bringing it to people around the world.”

The rollout changes one of WhatsApp’s oldest habits. Since Jan Koum and Brian Acton founded the company in 2009, WhatsApp has largely revolved around phone numbers. By the time Facebook agreed to buy WhatsApp in 2014, it had more than 450 million monthly users.

That number-first model is now being loosened, though not entirely eliminated. People will still need a phone number to use WhatsApp. But if a user enables a username, a person or business they message for the first time will no longer see that phone number unless they already have it saved.

That makes usernames one of WhatsApp’s biggest privacy changes since the company completed the rollout of end-to-end encryption by default in 2016.

“When you meet someone new, whether it’s a classmate, a neighbor, or someone you meet at an event, sharing a phone number can feel like a big step,” Newton-Rex said in a briefing.

However, even with the introduction, the feature isn’t a public search tool. Users will not be able to browse a username directory, and WhatsApp will not suggest names as someone types. A person will need to know the exact username before starting a conversation.

WhatsApp will also offer an optional username key, a four-digit code that users can require before a new person can message them by username. Rate limits are intended to block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username key, while automated systems will limit how many new people any account can contact.

To reduce impersonation, existing Facebook and Instagram usernames are being set aside for their owners during the reservation period. The option is designed in part for creators, small businesses, and organizations that want a consistent identity across Meta’s apps. High-profile names tied to public figures, government entities, and celebrities are also being held, along with lookalike versions of known names.

For businesses, the change is more than a privacy feature. It could alter the way companies advertise and manage customer conversations on one of the world’s largest messaging apps.

“We think businesses will be excited about this,” Newton-Rex told Inc. “When I travel around the world, I see businesses write their phone numbers on their shop windows or ads. Now they’ll just be able to write their username.”

The shift comes as Meta is pushing WhatsApp further into business messaging. The company said this month that more than one billion active threads with businesses take place every day across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Meta has also been expanding AI tools for businesses on WhatsApp, including agents that can answer customer questions, recommend products, book appointments, and qualify leads.

“WhatsApp is increasingly becoming an important global channel for businesses for customer engagement, and as the world expands beyond using phone numbers, we see global channels like WhatsApp shifting towards username functionality,” Kathryn Murphy, SVP of product at Twilio, said in a statement to Inc.

The rollout turns a WhatsApp username into a new customer-facing asset. A restaurant taking reservations, a retailer answering order questions, or a local service provider handling leads may soon have to treat its WhatsApp handle the way it treats a website domain, Instagram account, or customer-service email address.

The change may also affect the customer data businesses receive. Twilio, which provides messaging tools for businesses, has told customers that WhatsApp usernames can mask a user’s phone number. In those cases, a business may receive a Business Scoped User ID, or BSUID, instead.

The approach follows Signal, which introduced non-searchable usernames in 2024 so that users could connect without sharing phone numbers. WhatsApp is now bringing a similar idea to a much larger audience.