About a year ago, WhatsApp added a useful new feature that quickly became popular, but the chat app removed it again in January.
WhatsApp removes popular feature in January
The feature that WhatsApp added a year ago was the ability to have a conversation with in a WhatsApp chat ChatGPT. Since then it has been possible to add ChatGPT to your contacts using a telephone number. You can then simply chat with it, just like you do with all your other contacts. Very useful, so it is not surprising that this feature quickly became popular.
However, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has now announced that Meta will soon remove the ChatGPT integration for WhatsApp’s 50 million users. OpenAI cites a policy and terms change from WhatsApp as the reason for this, which was drawn up by parent company Meta. The company says in a blog post:
“We loved seeing more than 50 million of you chat, create and learn with ChatGPT on WhatsApp. The simplicity and familiarity of messaging made it a natural place for daily creativity and curiosity. Unfortunately, due to a WhatsApp policy and terms change, ChatGPT will no longer be available on WhatsApp after January 15, 2026. While we would much rather continue serving you on WhatsApp, we are focused on making the transition as easy as possible for all our users.”
Link account
ChatGPT is generally available on iPhone, iPad and on the web. Still, WhatsApp users may want to link their account directly to ChatGPT to ensure their conversation history is preserved. OpenAI provides here instructions for those users to follow before the ChatGPT integration is removed from WhatsApp on January 15, 2026:
Link your account to WhatsApp: you can link your ChatGPT account via the contact profile of 1-800-ChatGPT in WhatsApp and click on the URL there. Once the connection is made, your phone number will be linked to your ChatGPT account and your previous WhatsApp conversations will appear in the ChatGPT history. We recommend quickly linking your account to preserve history. Your WhatsApp conversations will not be automatically transferred after January 15, 2026. WhatsApp does not support exporting chats.
Atlas
Apart from all this, OpenAI released its first web browser on Monday, December 1: Atlas. The new browser with integrated ChatGPT is currently only available for free for the Mac, but there are plans to make it available for other platforms as well.
Paid subscribers also have access to an agent mode that turns chat prompts into actions like clearing tabs, researching a topic, or finding something you saw on the web during a previous browsing session. Don’t want to miss any of the developments at WhatsApp and ChatGPT? Then sign up for our newsletter and we will always keep you informed automatically from now on!
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