It does not plan on displaying ads in the inbox, but it may well be sending them through the Status feature of the application, as well as the channels.
While talking with the Brazilian media during an interview, WhatsApp Head Will Cathcart said, "We are not working on any plans to have ads in the main inbox, but we could allow ads in other places".

In September, Cathcart completely denied a report from Financial Times, which said the Meta-owned chat app intends to show ads. Talking to Brazilian media, he said that showing ads in the inbox is not the right model.

"The reason I qualified [sic] the answer is that there could be ads in other places — channels or status. For example, channels might charge people to subscribe, they might be exclusive to paid members or the owners might want to promote the channel. But, no, we won't put ads in your inbox," said Cathcart.

WhatsApp had previously considered adding ads to Status a few years ago, but the company never did. While Cathcart did say it was possible, nothing has rolled out yet. A Meta spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is not currently testing Status ads in any country. However, the company did not give a statement on the issue.

When WhatsApp introduced its broadcast feature Channels in June this year, the company said it was looking at tools such as promotion in the Channels directory. Meta hasn't given more details on when or even if it will launch ads in either of the products, Status or Channels.

Until now, the giant messaging app WhatsApp has based its revenue on other ways, such as click-to-WhatsApp ads and its business messaging, that make use of its users through more than 2 billion people worldwide.