WhatsApp launches Incognito Chat with Meta AI for private AI conversations

The Meta-owned messaging app, WhatsApp, announced a new feature in its AI space called Incognito Chat. It will be available both in WhatsApp and the Meta AI app in the coming months.

In Short

• Meta announces Incognito Chat
• It will be available on WhatsApp and Meta AI
• It will keep users' conversations private and temporary

Like smartphones, artificial intelligence is becoming another external organ of humans. Sometimes it acts like a mentor and sometimes as an assistant. People rush to AI for queries, to simplify things, and some even for emotional conversations. And not every conversation happens openly; some require privacy. Meta seems to provide that space to its AI users.

The company announced in a blog post on Wednesday, “We’re launching Incognito Chat with Meta AI on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app — a completely private way to interact with AI.” The feature is designed for users who want to ask sensitive questions, including those involving personal, financial, health, or work-related information, without worrying about their conversations being stored or viewed by others.

WhatsApp confirmed that the feature will roll out over the coming months. According to the company, it is built on top of its “Private Processing” technology, which creates a secure environment where no one can read users’ conversations — “not even us,” the messaging platform claims. The chats are temporary by default, are not saved, and disappear automatically after the session ends.

Meta Platforms is not the first company to use the term “incognito.” We have previously seen incognito modes in web browsers, which are designed to hide users’ browsing footprints. And in the AI space, Anthropic had earlier introduced a similar concept with Claude. However, the key difference is that Claude’s incognito mode makes chats temporary, not entirely private. Meta, on the other hand, is positioning its feature as a fully private conversation system. In its blog post as well, the company argued that many existing incognito-style systems can still access user queries and responses, whereas its own Incognito Chat is designed so that “not even us” can read conversations.

In the blog post, Meta also revealed plans for another upcoming feature called “Side Chat,” which will allow users to privately interact with Meta AI alongside ongoing conversations on WhatsApp without interrupting the main chat. The feature will also use the company’s Private Processing system.

- Ends