WhatsApp Rolls Out AI Summaries For Unread Messages: But Should You Turn It On?

WhatsApp is climbing onto the AI bandwagon with new a feature that essentially summarises unread chats for your convenience. The instant messaging platform is calling it ‘Message Summaries’ and it does exactly what the name suggests. There are a few WhatsApp group that are extremely active with a hundred messages shared between users in the group constantly. It is always a task to keep up with where the conversation is heading or what is being discussed. ‘Message Summaries’ looks to reduce time of going through the entire chat, and will offer a concise summary letting you know the gist of the discussion.

WhatsApp announced the roll out of Message Summaries in its blog post. It says that it uses Private Processing technology, which allows Meta AI to generate a response without Meta or WhatsApp ever seeing your messages or the private summaries. “No one else in the chat can see that you summarized unread messages either. This means your privacy is protected at all times,” the blog states.

Message Summaries is listed as an optional feature and is turned off by default. WhatsApp users can switch it on in Chat Setting, and can use Advanced Chat Privacy to select which chats can be shared for AI features. There is a lot of chatter about the sharing of sensitive information with AI agents, so proceed with a little bit of caution, especially because WhatsApp is a platform where a lot of sensitive information is shared.

WhatsApp says that ‘Message Summaries’ is rolling out for users in the United States, with other countries getting it by the end of this year.