Voice notes are one of the most popular forms of communication in today’s time. Catching up with a friend? Send a voice note. Updating your manager about important work updates? A voice note could do that! Communicating feelings to a special someone? Why bother meeting in-real-life (IRL) when a voice note can do that!
Amidst the growing use of voice note and other forms of text-based communication, we’re slowly losing touch with the joy of IRL catch-ups. To steer the conversation (literally) towards a more real-life setting, Heineken, the global brewing company, has rolled out a pilot tech program on WhatsApp, a social networking app. Launched as a chatbot, it aims to bring people closer together. How exactly does it aim to do that and what does it say about modern-day communication? Let’s get right into it!
Most of us have used the voice note feature on social media apps. Be it WhatsApp, Instagram, or some other app, we’ve all used voice notes at some point in our lives to communicate with others. And while it is a convenient way of communicating with those who live far away, voice notes are quietly changing the way we even perceive day-to-day communication and IRL meetups.
Stats by Statista, a global online data platform, reveal that a whopping 9.4 billion voice notes are being sent every single day, on WhatsApp alone! Not only are voice notes increasing in frequency, they’re also increasing in length. Many people use voice notes for longer duration messages, sometimes as long as 3 to 5 minutes. Many look at voice notes as the new form of ‘catching up’ in the digital age but does it even count as a ‘catch-up’ if it doesn’t involve face-to-face conversations in a real-life setting?
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So what if we told you that you could spend the time you normally dedicate to listening/sending voice notes actually meeting up with people in real life? As bizarre as it may sound, Heineken has launched a new, innovative WhatsApp tech that could transform the way you communicate.
Called the ‘Could Have Been A Heineken’ program, it is a piece of technology that simplifies conversations and allows you to meet people in real life. The idea is simple:
As of December 2025, the unique WhatsApp tech by Heineken is in its pilot phase, rolled out in Brazil. Heineken’s team specifically chose Brazil for the staggering statistics that the country showed in respect to voice-note communication.
Official data from META has revealed that Brazilians send four times as many voice notes than people in any other country!
This piece of tech was devised after extensive global research that polled over 14,000 respondents. The poll concluded that in just one year, the average person spends almost 150 hours a year sending and receiving voice notes.
It also revealed that over half the respondents believe that IRL interactions are being replaced by voice notes entirely. When compared to 2024 data, frequency of WhatsApp voice notes has increased by 7% and in length by 8%.
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Now you can swap your podcast-length voice notes for free beer and a chance to catch up with your friends and loved ones – all thanks to Heineken! The multinational brewing company is introducing a fun new way for us to steer towards good-old IRL meetups and savor the joy of face-to-face conversation. If the pilot turns out to be successful in Brazil, it won’t be long before we see it in India too!
