Meta has launched Incognito Chat with Meta AI on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app, introducing what the company describes as a fully private mode for artificial intelligence conversations in which even Meta itself cannot access the content of what users discuss. Built on top of WhatsApp’s Private Processing technology, Incognito Chat lets users talk to Meta AI in a way that is invisible to anyone else, with messages processed in a secure environment that even Meta cannot access, and conversations not saved, disappearing by default once the session ends. The feature is designed for users who want to ask sensitive questions, whether about health, finances, personal relationships, or career challenges, without those interactions being visible to the platform or retained in any server-side log.
Alice Newton-Rex, Vice President of Product at WhatsApp, told TechCrunch that people are starting to use artificial intelligence for everything, including some of their most private thoughts, and that the company considers it important to give people the ability to ask these questions as privately as possible. The technical foundation of the feature is a Trusted Execution Environment that handles all artificial intelligence inference, ensuring messages are not accessible to Meta, with conversations on the device also disappearing when users exit the session. This is different from other disappearing artificial intelligence products where conversation logs often remain on company servers for many months. Web search privacy is also protected within Incognito Chat: even when Meta AI searches the web on a user’s behalf during a conversation, it asks search engines to retrieve results using search terms based on the chat without linking those searches back to the user.
The session ends and Meta AI loses the context of the conversation if users close the app or lock their phone. The company used its latest Muse Spark model to power the Incognito Chat feature, which was released last month. In the coming months, Meta also plans to introduce Side Chat protected by Private Processing, which will give users private help within any WhatsApp chat with the context of what is being discussed, without disrupting the main conversation or notifying other participants. Incognito Chat is rolling out to WhatsApp and the Meta AI app over the coming months.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
