WhatsApp is making a Slack-like tool called Communities to link group chats

WhatsApp said it has built a feature called Communities that will allow users to pull together separate groups under a single organization.

With the new feature, community administrators will be able to send messages to all of the groups or control which groups are alerted. (Bloomberg)

WhatsApp said it has built a feature called Communities that will allow users to pull together separate groups under a single organization.

With the new feature, community administrators will be able to send messages to all of the groups or control which groups are alerted. The messaging platform company will start testing Communities in various countries throughout the year, in an effort to appeal to clubs with multiple chapters, for instance, or businesses with multiple teams.

“We think Communities will make it easier for a school principal to bring all the parents of the school together to share must-read updates and set up groups about specific classes, extracurricular activities, or volunteer needs,” the Meta Platforms Inc.-owned company said in a blog post.

It's one of several new features that will help WhatsApp, which has more than 2 billion users, move beyond casual socialization and into territory currently dominated by workplace tools, such as Slack. WhatsApp said it also plans to start allowing group members to react to specific messages and share large files.