As of June 2026, Meta is rolling out WhatsApp usernames, allowing users to hide their phone numbers by default. When a user adopts a username, businesses will no longer receive their phone number via webhook. Instead, Meta will deliver a Business Scoped User ID (BSUID), a unique identifier per business account.

Currently, GHL identifies and matches contacts exclusively by phone number. This means that once a contact adopts a WhatsApp username and hides their number, any incoming message from that contact will either fail to match an existing contact record, create a duplicate, or simply land as an unassigned conversation in the inbox.

For businesses using GHL with direct Meta integration, this is not a hypothetical edge case. It will affect real conversations, automations, and workflow triggers that rely on contact identification.

And also on mobile apps(Lead Connector) with WhatsApp Business API was unable to reply due to it's not number but it's an username, it's showed no message initiated from the user in past 24 hrs. Please use a template to initiated a chat but even tho still under 24 hrs free window chat.

Requested solution:

Store and index the BSUID returned by Meta's webhook as a secondary contact identifier, alongside the phone number. When an incoming WhatsApp message carries a BSUID, GHL should attempt to match it against existing contacts before creating a new record. This would preserve conversation history, workflow context, and contact data integrity as Meta's username rollout expands.

This is a foundational fix that will become increasingly necessary as WhatsApp username adoption grows throughout 2026 and beyond.