Meta has a plan to bring AI to WhatsApp chats without breaking privacy

As Meta’s first-ever generative AI conference , the company is also previewing a significant update on its plans to bring AI features to WhatsApp chats. Buried in its LlamaCon updates, the company that it’s working on something called “Private Processing,” which will allow users to take advantage of generative AI capabilities within WhatsApp without eroding its privacy features.

According to Meta, Private Processing is an “optional capability” that will enable people to “leverage AI capabilities for things like summarizing unread messages or refining them, while keeping messages private.” WhatsApp, of course, is known for its strong privacy protections and end-to-end . That would seem incompatible with cloud-based AI features like Meta AI. But Private Processing will essentially allow Meta to do both.

Meta has shared more details about how it will accomplish this over on its but, as Wired it’s a similar model as Apple’s (which allows the iPhone maker to implement Apple AI without sending all your data to the cloud). Here’s how Meta describes its approach.

The company seems well-aware such a plan will likely be met with skepticism. WhatsApp is regularly targeted by bad actors as it is. To address inevitable concerns from the security community, the company says it will allow security researchers and others to audit Private Processing, and will make the technology part of its bug bounty program that rewards people who find security vulnerabilities in its services.

It’s not clear when generative AI features may actually be available in WhatsApp chats — the company describes its announcement today as merely a “first look” at the technology — but it does note that Private Processing and “similar infrastructure” could have use cases beyond its messaging app.