You can now create a highly customizable avatar in WhatsApp
WhatsApp has rolled out several major new features to its platform in recent months. In early November, the messaging service rolled outCommunities to supercharge your group chatsand increased the group video call limit to 32 persons. Then, a couple of weeks later,messaging yourself on WhatsApp became a thing. Now, the Meta-owned service has officially announced the rollout of avatars on its platform.
Signs of WhatsApp looking toadopt Facebook’s Bitmoji-like avatarsfirst popped up in July this year. Then in October, more details emerged about the feature as itappeared on the app’s beta channel. An avatar is a digital version of yourself that is fully customizable using different hairstyles, skin tones, outfits, and expressions.
Once you set up an avatar, a custom sticker pack with 36 stickers is generated that you can send in conversations. You can also set the avatar as your profile picture instead of your real photo. Meta already allows for the creation of Bitmoji-style avatars on Facebook and Instagram, but you can’t import the same avatar for use in WhatsApp.
WhatsApp says in itsannouncementthat avatars will provide users with a “new and personalized way to express” themselves. Over time, the Meta-owned platform will continue improving avatars with additional customization options like lighting, shading, hairstyle textures, and the ability to create multi-characater avatar stickers using your friend’s avatar.
There weresigns of WhatsApp even allowing the use of avatars on video calls, but that is not possible in the current implementation.
Avatar support in WhatsApp is rolling out today and should be available to the majority of users in the coming days. you could check if the feature is available for your account from WhatsApp’s Settings menu. If the Avatar option is showing up, you can create and customize your avatar as per your preference.
The note-taking app I should have used all along
Broader branding hints at wider paid-tier ambitions
Generative AI, now poolside
A hefty discount makes this a no-brainer
You can now learn languages too
We just learned a little bit more about Light No Fire in a video about the Voyagers update for No Man’s Sky
