WhatsApp has been rolling out a lot of updates and new features. Recently features like 'Keep in Chat,' Chat lock and a lot more have been introduced and will soon be available to all WhatsApp users. Presently, it is just available to the beta users.
Similarly, WhatsApp is testing a new feature which at the moment, available only to WhatsApp beta 2.23.10.2 users for now on Android. This new feature is related to GIF support and GIFs playback.
In WhatsApp if someone sends you a GIF, you need to tap on it to see the animation. But this feature will allow the GIF to play on its own as soon as you open the chat. But the animation will be played only once. After that the GIF badge will appear, and you have to click on it to play the animation again.
The single play of the animation actually makes it better as the endless loop just makes it boring and annoying all at once. This can be considered a small minor update, but if you love sending these GIFs and take the conversation ahead using these then it's just perfect for you.
As of now this feature is available only to the WhatsApp 2.23.10.2 beta users. If you want to be a WhatsApp beta user, you can try joining it by going to Play Store and searching for WhatsApp Beta, but if it shows full then you will have to wait for the updates eventually, since the beta program has calculated the number of user seats.
Eventually this feature will soon be available to more users and in a couple of months it will be available to all WhatsApp users. We can imagine this GIF playback feature to be a really fun feature when it is rolled out to everyone, making chatting with friends even more fun.