WhatsApp is enhancing the experience of using its upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) chats feature with a visual change. Earlier in the year, the Meta-owned firm announced its work on supporting AI chatbots on the widely used messaging platform. These AI-powered assistants are currently available to some users in the US. Additionally, WhatsApp has started testing a new section for status updates that enables users to view and filter a list of the updates.
Users updating to WhatsApp beta for Android 2.23.24.26 (via feature tracker WABetaInfo) are seeing a new shortcut to initiate these chats right from the main chat list via a floating action button (FAB) on the latest beta version. A white button with a multi-colored ring is displayed above the new chat button.
A screenshot of the new AI button shared by the feature tracker
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo
Meta, in September, announced the addition of AI assistants to its messaging apps on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. These chatbots are powered by Meta’s large language model, Llama 2, and can respond to user queries and perform web searches with Bing. Moreover, the assistants can generate images using text prompts and support AI avatars with a range of personalities, according to the company.
Although it may take some time before Meta introduces AI chats to users in other regions, the new button should make it easier for users to discover the feature on their own compared to the additional steps required to create a new AI conversation via the new chat button. On another note, WABetaInfo has observed a new filtered vertical list on WhatsApp beta for Android 2.23.25.3, which allows users to view all available statuses — the Instagram stories-like feature that is also available on WhatsApp — via a vertical list. The list of status updates also includes channels, according to the feature tracker.
To help users manage the list of statuses, the latest WhatsApp beta introduces four new filters — All, Recent, Viewed, and Muted — at the top of the screen. The ability to organize and filter statuses is expected to be available to users on the stable update channel on both iOS and Android in the future.
