WhatsApp plans new feature to summarise unread messages

WhatsApp is set to introduce an innovative feature called 'Quick Recap', designed to enhance user experience by summarising unread messages in selected conversations.

Unlike the existing message summaries that offer brief overviews of unread messages in a single chat, Quick Recap aims to deliver a more detailed account, allowing users to catch up across multiple conversations without sifting through lengthy threads, WABetaInfo reported.

Additionally, the popular Meta-owned instant messaging app's new feature leverages Meta AI while still maintaining strict privacy protections. 

The feature, which is scheduled for release in a future update, incorporates Private Processing, a dedicated privacy-preserving environment, before any processing takes place. 

This ensures that the raw message content remains within a secure enclave and is never exposed in a readable form. 

In practical terms, users will be able to open the Chats tab, choose up to five conversations, and tap on a new icon labelled Quick Recap. 

When this action is triggered, Private Processing immediately gets to work, securely preparing unread messages so that Meta AI can generate a recap without ever exposing personal information. 

After a few moments, the user receives a concise summary of the most relevant unread messages in each selected conversation, helping them save time and effort.

It's worth noting that Quick Recap will only support up to five chats at a time. This means that if users want summaries for more conversations, they will need to run the process again for other groups or individual chats. 

In addition, chats protected by Advanced Chat Privacy cannot be included in Quick Recap. This restriction is not due to any weakness for the architecture behind Private Processing, but rather out of respect for those users who have explicitly chosen to exclude AI-powered features from specific conversations.

As with other AI-powered tools in WhatsApp, Quick Recap will be entirely optional. The feature will not be enabled by default, as users must enable it manually through the app settings. 

By design, this will empower users to decide if, when, and how they want to leverage Quick Recap according to their own preferences and comfort level. The new feature is under development.