Just days after Meta pulled support for encrypted direct messages on Instagram, the tech giant is now rolling out a new private AI chat feature.
Meta announced on Wednesday that its new Incognito Chat feature will let users interact with its AI chatbot on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app in what the company describes as a secure environment. The social media giant is pitching the feature as a way for users to feel free to discuss sensitive topics like health, finance, or career advice with Meta AI without worrying that their conversations could be viewed by anyone else.
“Other apps have introduced incognito-style modes, but they can still see the questions coming in and the answers going out. Incognito Chat with Meta AI is truly private, meaning no one — not even Meta — can read your conversations,” the company said in a blog post.
The feature is built on WhatsApp’s Private Processing technology, which Meta introduced last year to enable optional AI privacy features like this one. Essentially, the system lets users request an allegedly confidential and secure environment to process their AI interactions.
In the case of Incognito Chat, users can start a private, temporary conversation with Meta AI that encrypts their messages and then processes them in a secure environment that Meta claims it can’t access. The company adds that those conversations are not saved by default and that the messages disappear on their own.
The feature is expected to roll out on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app in the coming months.
Meta also teased another feature it is calling Sidechat, which uses the same private processing technology to let users privately use Meta AI in a WhatsApp conversation without interrupting the main chat. In practice, this would allow users to ask Meta AI questions about, or summarize, their conversations with real people
The timing of these new features is somewhat notable. It comes less than a week after Meta stopped supporting encrypted direct messages on Instagram.
The company said on an Instagram support page that end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram would no longer be supported after May 8. Users with affected conversations should see instructions for how to save any media or messages they want to keep.
Meta also pointed users toward WhatsApp if they want to keep using encrypted messaging.
“For Meta’s other end-to-end encrypted chat options, check out WhatsApp,” the page reads.
A Meta spokesperson told PCMag at the time that the decision was made because “very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs.”
The spokesperson added that users who want to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption “can easily do that on WhatsApp.”
READ MORE: Google Was Always Tracking Users, Even With Incognito Mode
