WhatsApp launches incognito mode for Meta AI chats
▼ Summary
– Meta is adding an “incognito” conversation mode for its AI chatbot on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app, processed in a secure environment unseen by others.
– Incognito chats are not saved, messages disappear when the chat is closed, and the session ends if the app or phone is locked, losing context.
– The feature uses Meta’s new Muse Spark model, following previous AI features powered by smaller models.
– Meta is developing a “Side Chat” feature to privately invoke Meta AI within group chats without notifying other participants.
– This move toward private AI chats follows legal opinions that user-AI conversations could be used against individuals in litigation.
Meta has introduced a new incognito mode for conversations with its Meta AI chatbot on WhatsApp, allowing users to ask sensitive questions in a more private environment. The company announced Wednesday that these private AI chats will be processed in a secure infrastructure and remain invisible to others.
To start an incognito session, users simply tap a new icon within their one-on-one chats with Meta AI. The same feature will also roll out to the standalone Meta AI app in the coming months. Once a user closes the incognito chat, the messages automatically disappear. The session also ends if the app is closed or the phone is locked, at which point Meta AI loses all context of that specific conversation.
“People are starting to use AI for everything, including some of their most private thoughts, whether that’s tackling financial or health questions, or for advice on how to respond to a tricky message from a friend or a colleague,” said Alice Newton-Rex, VP of Product at WhatsApp, in a call with TechCrunch. “We think it’s really important to give people the ability to ask these questions as privately as possible.”
Meta has been building toward secure AI chats on WhatsApp for some time. Last year, the company detailed its private processing infrastructure, designed to enable AI features without compromising end-to-end encryption. Since then, WhatsApp has added AI-powered message summaries using this architecture. Newton-Rex noted that while previous features relied on smaller models, the new incognito chat runs on Meta’s latest Muse Spark model, released last month.
The company is already working on its next privacy-focused feature, called Side Chat. This will let users invoke Meta AI within a group or individual chat to ask private questions, without notifying other participants or showing the responses to them. Currently, users must tag a message and ask the AI assistant publicly within a chat, or copy and paste text into a separate window for private queries.
Other AI chatbots, including ChatGPT and Claude, already offer incognito modes. Privacy-focused companies like DuckDuckGo and Proton have also launched their own secure chatbots. Meta’s timing is notable: last month, Reuters cited legal experts who warned that users’ conversations with an AI chatbot could be used against them in litigation, underscoring the need for stronger privacy protections.
(Source: TechCrunch)
