WhatsApp gets better for big groups with new Communities and 32-person video chats

Meta is rolling out a few changes to WhatsApp that will make the app better to use for large circles of people, including the wide rollout of Communities.

Communities are designed to house multiple related groups within bigger organizations of people, such as a neighborhood or a workplace. Think something like Slack or Discord, but with a WhatsApp spin (including end-to-end encrypted messages), and admins can share updates with an entire community through an announcements channel. The company first began testing Communities out in April, and now they’re rolling out to everyone.

Meta is also introducing some new features that could improve day-to-day communications. New in-chat polls could be useful for landing on a meeting time or picking what movie to watch. Video calls can now have up to 32 participants, which might be handy for a big video call in your new Community. And if you just want to make a giant group, WhatsApp is doubling the maximum group size from 512 to 1024 users.