Meta announced on Wednesday that it is introducing a new AI-powered summaries feature to WhatsApp. This optional feature utilizes Meta AI to summarize unread messages in a chat, providing users with a quick overview of the conversation without having to read through every message.
The company emphasizes that these summaries are only visible to the user who generates them and are not shared with others in the chat. This ensures privacy and confidentiality for all users involved in the conversation.
The new feature is built upon the AI technology that Meta introduced in April, which enables the implementation of AI features without compromising encryption or user privacy. According to Meta, the Message Summaries feature utilizes Private Processing technology, allowing Meta AI to generate responses without accessing or storing any private messages or summaries. This ensures that the content of the chat remains secure and confidential at all times.
Although the feature is disabled by default, WhatsApp displays an icon to indicate its availability to users. Meta is initially launching the feature in the U.S. with English language support, with plans to expand to more countries and languages in the future.
Previously, users could interact with Meta AI in a chat to ask general questions or provide context through tagging messages. However, Meta AI was unable to read the content of messages. With the new AI-powered features, WhatsApp can now access chat context privately to process requests using AI technology, enabling functions such as message summarization and writing suggestions.
Users can access the new AI-powered features through a dedicated setting in WhatsApp. By navigating to Settings > Chats > Private Processing, users can enable or disable individual functions based on their preferences.
Overall, Meta’s introduction of AI-powered summaries to WhatsApp represents a significant step forward in enhancing the user experience and providing innovative features while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and security.
