Cold plasma (CP) is a non-thermal technology which presents several advantages, such as the use of low temperatures, fast treatment, high energy efficiency and maintenance of the nutritional value of dairy foods, being scarce studies regards the sensory profiling of these products. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of atmospheric cold plasma technology (5, 10, or 15 min - CP5, CP10 and CP15, respectively) on the sensory profile of whey dairy beverages added with xylooligosaccarharide (XOS, 1.4 % p/v). Both a prebiotic control (untreated, CONT) and pasteurized (72-75 °C/15s, PAST) sample were used for comparison purposes, totaling 5 samples. Eighty consumers (aged 18-27 years, 55% women) evaluated the intensity of sensory attributes (white color, brightness, milk aroma, acid aroma, brackish aroma, whey beverage aroma, milk flavor, whey beverage flavor, salty, bitter, acid and sweet taste, and consistency) as well as overall liking using a 9-cm non-structured intensity and hedonic scale, respectively. Data were submitted to ANOVA, Tukey's test (p<0.05), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), with confidence ellipses and PLS regression to identify the drivers of liking. There was no effect of the type of processing (pasteurization or cold plasma) or the plasma exposure time on the sensory acceptance of the beverages when compared to the untreated sample (p > 0.05). The total variance accounted for PCA bidimensional map was 74.06%, being CONT and C5 associated to acid aroma, while CONV and C10 were characterized by brackish aroma, sweet taste, and consistency. CONT, CONV, and C5 were overlapped, suggesting that the pasteurization and the cold plasma treatment for 5 min resulted in beverages with similar sensory profile to untreated product. PLS regression presented suitable predictive ability (Q2= 0.789), being seven sensory descriptors (whey beverage flavor, sweet taste, white color, consistency, brightness, brackish and acid aroma) contributed to consumers’ acceptance (VIP scores > 1). Among them, acid aroma and whey beverage flavor contributed positively to the acceptance of products, while sweet taste, white color, consistency, brightness, and brackish aroma had opposite effect. Overall, CP technology can be used as an alternative treatment for whey dairy beverages without negatively impacting the sensory profile.