WhatsApp's new feature makes chatting with AI easier for bad texters

It seems like 2024 will be remembered as the year when every tech giant raced to make its version of AI chatbot a staple of our daily lives. While Google Gemini and ChatGPT are currently the top contenders, Meta has been slowly integrating Meta AI into its popular apps — Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp — making it easier than ever to chat with Meta’s take on an AI chatbot.

But what about the rest of us who don’t have the patience to type in long, tedious prompts for AI chatbots? I’m glad you asked because WaBetaInfo has uncovered a new feature in the WhatsApp beta for Android (version 2.24.16.10) that will allow users to send voice messages to Meta AI. Previously, communication with Meta AI was limited to text and image-based interactions.

A screenshot shared by the publication gives us a glimpse of what this might look like, with a voice message button appearing right in the Meta AI chat interface. This suggests that sending voice messages to Meta AI could work very similarly to how it works in regular conversations. While there are no details about the languages that Meta AI will support for voice messaging, given WhatsApp’s popularity in South Asian countries, Meta is likely to prioritize multilingual support.

The big question now is whether the new voice chat feature will enable Meta AI to perform specific functions within WhatsApp, such as replying to messages or suggesting responses, or if it will primarily act as a general voice assistant for tasks like web searches and recommendations. If it leans towards the latter, Meta AI may face stiff competition from the default voice assistants that our smartphones already come with.

We’ll be eager to see how this new feature unfolds in the coming months. The voice chat feature is currently available to a limited number of beta testers, but it should soon be available to a broader user base.