WhatsApp Upgrades Group Chats with Better Polls, @All Mentions, and More

WhatsApp has announced a set of group chat upgrades, including an improved polls feature and a new @all mention that notifies every member of a group at once. The changes expand on tools the platform already offered and introduce functionality that group administrators and frequent users have been requesting for some time.

What’s changing with polls

The updated polls tool adds more flexibility to how group members create and interact with votes. WhatsApp’s previous poll implementation was functional but limited so the new version addresses the most common friction points, giving participants more control over options and how results are displayed. The @all mention works as a group-wide ping, similar to the equivalent feature in Slack and Telegram, letting a sender alert every participant in a thread without tagging each person individually.

@all alert

The @all alert allow users to mention everyone in a group chat for important messages, even in muted chats. However, users can override and mute @all alerts too. This works with groups with up to 32 members. For groups which have more than 32 members, only group admins can use the @all alert feature.

Creating group chats

Users can now start a new group chat with people from an existing one in just a tap, instead of adding users manually. This helps create ‘breakout rooms’ for side discussions with select members of the group, useful for planning a surprise party or just take a discuss to a smaller group.

WhatsApp has been very active lately with updates. Check out our coverage of recent updates: