WhatsApp<\/b> has announced incognito mode for its built-in Meta AI chatbot, letting users ask personal, sensitive questions away from the prying eyes of others and data providers.<\/p>\n
According to Meta, WhatsApp\u2019s Incognito Chat with Meta AI is truly private, in that even WhatsApp itself has no access to your incognito mode conversations with Meta AI. The company claims it is unlike other options, in which AI providers can still see active incognito chats, even if they do not retain that information or train their AI models on the data within.<\/p>\n WhatsApp\u2019s Meta AI incognito mode in a nutshell.<\/p>\n Image: WhatsApp (Meta)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n This works well for questions you feel that nobody should have access to because it\u2019s weird or intrusive, like asking about a rash that recently appeared, or having to explain to people why you want a second or third opinion on a matter you\u2019re obsessed with.<\/p>\n Incognito Mode appears as an option within your Meta AI chat window, and you can flit in and out of the mode during the course of a conversation. However, the queries and responses in Incognito Mode do not carry over to your regular Meta AI conversations (that\u2019s the whole point of having the mode). Similarly, you will lose the conversation as soon as you exit Meta AI\u2019s chatbot.<\/p>\n Meta said the AI is already pretrained with safeguards, so Incognito Mode doesn\u2019t mean it will suddenly be able to answer inappropriate questions from equally questionable characters. It just doesn\u2019t save your chat with the AI.<\/p>\n In the top-right corner of the Meta AI chat is Incognito Mode.<\/p>\n Image: WhatsApp (Meta)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Upon entering the Meta AI chat box, the top-right corner has a dotted line speech bubble. This is your entry point to Incognito Mode on WhatsApp.<\/p>\n The app will tell you if you are in the private chat box, or not.<\/p>\n Image: WhatsApp (Meta)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n You will know you are in Incognito Mode because the first line of the chat box informs the user upon start up.<\/p>\n To exit, the button is in the top-left corner.<\/p>\n Image: WhatsApp (Meta)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n To exit Incognito Mode, you tap the cross button in the top left. That brings you back to regular Meta AI.<\/p>\n No, it\u2019s not processed on-device. Meta said that mobile computing is still insufficient to include an AI model of Meta AI\u2019s scale and complexity in this way. To solve this problem, Incognito Chat with Meta AI is processed in a secure environment that Meta can\u2019t access, where conversations aren\u2019t saved, and messages disappear as soon as you close out.<\/p>\n It offers the same level of privacy from its end-to-end encryption through the use of Private Processing <\/b>technology, which you can learn about from its blog<\/u>, or from its whitepaper here (PDF)<\/u>.<\/p>\n WhatsApp added that it will also introduce Side Chat with Private Processing \u201cin the coming months\u201d, allowing you to get context from active groupchats without interrupting the conversation or having your questions and answers saved somewhere, out there.<\/p>\n Incognito Mode with Meta AI will roll out gradually to all markets over the next few months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n