WhatsApp said further On Wednesday, it launches an AI chat feature known as Incognito Chat, which allows users to talk privately with Meta AI – so that Meta itself cannot access the questions and answers. The feature builds on WhatsApp’s private processing scheme, which debuted a year ago and already underpins existing WhatsApp AI features, including message summarization and composition tools.
The idea behind incognito chat is to allow WhatsApp to integrate chat with artificial intelligence that does not interfere with the messaging platform’s commitment to end-to-end encryption, a privacy scheme in which only direct participants in the conversation can read messages and hear conversations. Most generative AI platforms now offer some type of “incognito mode,” but these features are typically intended to separate users from the questions they ask and the answers they receive, rather than including a mechanism to completely hide those questions and answers from the provider’s view. According to Meta, with incognito chat, WhatsApp will only be able to see whether an account has used this feature.
Meta invites third-party audits and reports on private computing vulnerabilities, and says Incognito Chat itself will be subject to expert oversight so that third parties can verify that the code Meta provides for the feature is sustainable. But as with any cloud system, talking to Meta AI on WhatsApp will ultimately be about trusting Meta in the same way you utilize WhatsApp to communicate.
“A lot of our work at WhatsApp deals with situations where there is a perfect solution that is very difficult to use. How do we provide people with other options that still provide them with privacy benefits?” WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart tells WIRED. “With AI, from a privacy standpoint, you’d want to run everything on your own phone, but the advantage of these models is that they’re using more and more computing power to make them work. So the challenge is to build something in the data center that doesn’t fit in your pocket but has the same security features. Incognito chatting is a bit like using a giant AI-enabled phone and we don’t have a password.”
Incognito chats are ephemeral by default and disappear once the conversation ends. Cathcart says WhatsApp may be working on developing options under private processing to preserve some or all conversations over time for users who want such a history. For now, incognito chat only supports text. Cathcart says work is underway to support image processing and voice recognition. Reducing latency in any way possible, including through routing optimization, was key to ensuring the usability of incognito chat, given the additional requirements of running AI in a secure Private Processing cloud environment.
“Incognito Chat handles all AI requests in a trusted execution environment that ensures your messages are not accessible to us,” wrote Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in post on Wednesday. “Conversations on your phone also disappear when you exit a session. This is different from other disappearing AI products, where call logs often remain on third-party servers for months.”
Meta is also adding incognito chat as an option in the Meta AI app.
Another feature announced on Wednesday alongside incognito chat is “Side Chat with Meta AI,” which integrates the ability to essentially chat with Meta AI about a text chat you’re having with another person or group of people. The idea is to give users the ability to ask AI for suggestions about a restaurant or movie your friends are discussing, without having to reveal those locations or interests to the company.