Meta has started to roll out its WhatsApp generative AI tool to select users in South Africa ahead of a wider launch.
The Meta AI tool will be able to respond to written questions, chat with users, generate ideas, and make images through WhatsApp.
The search bar normally at the top of the WhatsApp chat page will be converted into an AI tool that can generate responses to questions. It also provides a host of suggested questions for users to enter. Users are then taken to a chat with the MetaAI tool, similar to what a chat with any other contact looks like, but where the tool responds instead of a person.
Meta started rolling out the tool in September last year to a limited group of users in some countries. In recent days, some people in South Africa have started getting access to the tool. Some teething troubles were reported by users, including an inability to archive chats and search for contacts through the AI search bar.
WhatsApp is still in the process of rolling out the tool, so not all WhatsApp users will have access to it at this stage. The full launch date is not known, and the tool is only available in English for now, according to a WhatsApp FAQ info page.
The Meta-owned company claimed that personal messages sent to friends and family will not be read by the AI tool.
'The most important thing to know is that your personal messages with friends and family are off limits. AIs can read what is sent to them, but your personal messages remain end-to-end encrypted, so no one else, including Meta, can see them,' the FAQ page read.
However, the AI tool will use the information that you type directly to it to improve its model, so WhatsApp warned not to tell it anything you dont want it to know.
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'What you send ... may be used to provide you with accurate responses or to improve the model, so do not send messages with information you do not want it to know,' read the FAQ page.
Metas AI tool joins a long list of large-language-model AI tools that have been released since 2022. OpenAIs ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Elon Musks Grok tool have all been released and are being experimented with.
Locally, South African start-up LelapaAI is building AI language tools that are available in African languages such as isiZulu and Sesotho.
