New Delhi: WhatsApp has announced a new privacy-focused feature called Incognito Chat with Meta AI, giving users a way to interact with the company’s AI assistant
without leaving behind a permanent conversation history. It’s a feature that’s designed for people who would like to have a private conversation about a sensitive subject like money, health, or personal or work-related matters.
Meta says the feature is driven by the company’s new private processing technology, which is designed to be able to process AI requests in a secure environment, without exposing conversations to Meta. The rollout will start with WhatsApp and the Meta AI app in the next few months.
WhatsApp brings temporary AI chats for sensitive conversations
Meta claims that Incognito Chat is designed to create a new and temporary chat with Meta AI within WhatsApp. These chats are only visible to the user and will be removed at the end of the session. By default, the messages are deleted, and there’s no history of the conversation for future use.
The feature is completely optional and can be turned on as needed when users wish for a more private experience with AI, the company explained. Meta says that the system won’t let WhatsApp or Meta look at the content of the chats during processing.
Meta says private processing keeps messages hidden
Meta claims that Incognito Chat uses its private processing infrastructure, which handles AI requests in an isolated area that is separate from the company’s servers. According to the company, this configuration would make it impossible for Meta to read user prompts or the AI-generated responses.
Meta also said it was not possible to access certain information, such as IP addresses, during the session. During processing, messages are kept encrypted, and the temporary chat is automatically deleted after the chat window is closed.
The idea is to expand the privacy guarantees users already enjoy when using WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption to AI-powered experiences, which are usually cloud-based.
No memory, no saved context in incognito mode
Incognito Chat does not remember the last conversation you had with it; unlike regular AI chats, it does not keep in mind past conversations to improve its next answer. Meta claims the AI doesn’t “remember” anything or “remember” conversations from one session to the next.
This also means that users do not have to worry about their previous chat affecting the next one or having it saved in their account history.
Meta also working on “Side Chat” AI feature
In addition, Meta has revealed it is also working on a new feature called Side Chat with Meta AI. The tool will offer private AI support within current chats, without revealing the contents of the conversations, according to the company.
Meta has not announced a release date for SideChat yet, but the company states that both are part of its overall effort to enhance secure and privacy-centric AI dialogue throughout its platforms.
