As part of its ongoing AI push, Meta has outlined coming AI functionality for WhatsApp, which will operate in a more secure, isolated environment, offering peace of mind to WhatsApp users.
So WhatsApp users, of which there are around 2.78 billion, won’t miss out on the AI chatbot shift, and Meta won’t miss out on getting its AI tools in front of many, many more potential users.
Though ensuring that people feel safe in sharing their WhatsApp data with AI will be tricky, which is why Meta’s experimenting with what it’s called “Private Processing”, which will enable WhatsApp users to initiate private chats in a more secure manner.
As explained by Meta:
“Using confidential computing infrastructure, built on top of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), [Private Processing] will make it possible for people to direct AI to process their requests – like summarizing unread WhatsApp threads or getting writing suggestions – in our secure and private cloud environment. In other words, Private Processing will allow users to leverage powerful AI features, while preserving WhatsApp’s core privacy promise, ensuring no one except you and the people you’re talking to can access or share your personal messages, not even Meta or WhatsApp.”
Meta’s always very keen to underline this with WhatsApp, which makes sense, given the app’s privacy focus. And as noted, that also makes AI integration within the app difficult, because AI tools need to take your data out of the app environment in order to pass them through Meta’s AI systems.
Private Processing aims to address this, by offering a more contained, secure way to use AI with your chat info, which should provide another means to use its AI tools in another element.
“Data shared to Private Processing is processed in an environment which does not make it available to any other system. This protection is further upheld by encrypting data end-to-end between the client and the Private Processing application, so that only Private Processing, and no one in between – including Meta, WhatsApp, or any third-party relay – can access the data. To prevent possible user data leakage, only limited service reliability logs are permitted to leave the boundaries of CVM.”
So good news, I guess, in that WhatsApp users will also be able to utilize Meta’s AI features, though whether they will remain to be seen.
Because despite Meta’s repeated assurances (it’s written a 3,000 word essay to outline and reiterate what I’ve summarized above), many WhatsApp users have come to the app for its added data protection and privacy, and they’ll be hesitant to enable any outside processing of their private chat data.
I mean, of course they will, and they should, and I’m not sure that added functionality like message thread summaries or reply suggestions will be worth the perceived risk of such.
I mean, WhatsApp chats are designed for personal engagement anyway, so you probably don’t need AI suggestions when talking with close friends and groups. Summarization could also be risky, and for all of its efforts, I’m not sure that Meta’s AI tools will really add a heap of value in this respect.
But then again, WhatsApp reaches a lot more people who don’t use Meta’s other apps, and this could provide a way in to enable more users to tap into Meta’s expanding range of AI tools in-stream.
The value will be variable, but as part of Zuck’s grand AI vision, this is another important step in utilizing Meta’s scale to maximize its offerings.
You can read more about Meta’s “Private Processing” approach to AI on WhatsApp here.
