Messaging service WhatsApp introduced a new Message Summaries feature on Wednesday, using Meta AI to analyze unread conversations and provide short explainers on your phone. But it won’t automatically be turned on; users will have to choose to use it. Here’s how it works.
WhatsApp users can select a «summarize privately» option at the top of a long text chain. Then Meta AI will produce several bullet points, available only to that user, noting what the conversation seems to be about and listing the people who are responding. In its example, WhatsApp shows a summary of check-in plans, noting how each project member has responded.
Privacy concerns are common with features like this. Meta-owned WhatsApp seems well aware of this fact, offering both a white paper on the technical details of these message summaries and assurances that the feature will be turned off by default.
The technology uses what WhatsApp calls Private Processing technology, which it says enables analysis without Meta AI actually «seeing» the messages or the related summaries.
This uses something called a temporary Confidential Virtual Machine, or CVM, which processes text data and then discards the information so it can’t be used for any other analysis by any party.
A representative for Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The feature has begun to roll out to English speakers in the United States.
