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Is the New AI Writing Help on WhatsApp Private and How Do I Start Using It?
Have you ever known what you want to say but struggled to find the right words? WhatsApp has introduced a new feature called Writing Help to solve this exact problem. It is a tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that lives directly inside your chats. Its purpose is to help you express yourself more clearly, whether you need to sound more professional, add a touch of humor, or simply rephrase your thoughts.
This feature is designed to be a helpful advisor for your writing. It doesn’t write messages for you from scratch. Instead, it takes what you have already typed and offers suggestions to improve it, giving you full control over the final message.
How to Use Writing Help in Your Chats
Using the new AI tool is a straightforward process integrated directly into the messaging app, so you don’t need to switch to another program.
- Start a message: Open any personal or group chat and begin typing your message as you normally would.
- Look for the pencil icon: As you type, a new pencil icon will appear in the text field.
- Tap for suggestions: Tapping this icon tells the AI to analyze your text and provide suggestions.
- Choose a style: The tool will present you with different ways to rewrite your message. You can choose from several styles to match the situation.
- Review and edit: When you select a suggestion, it replaces your original text in the message box. It does not send automatically. This gives you a chance to make more edits or accept it as is before you hit send.
For example, if you typed, “Please don’t leave dirty socks on the sofa,” the Writing Help feature might offer a funny alternative like, “Please don’t make the sofa a sock graveyard,” or “Hey, sock ninja, the laundry basket is that way!”.
What Can the Writing Assistant Do?
The Writing Help feature is more than just a grammar checker; it is designed to help you adjust the tone and style of your communication. It acts as an assistant to ensure your message has the intended impact.
- Adjust Your Tone: You can change your message to fit different contexts. The main styles offered include Professional, Funny, and Supportive. This is useful when you are contacting a business and want to sound formal or when you want to make a friend laugh.
- Rephrase for Clarity: If a sentence feels awkward or unclear, the tool can suggest alternative phrasings to make your point more effectively. This helps avoid misunderstandings that can sometimes happen in text conversations.
- Improve Structure: The AI can suggest better sentence structures, making your writing flow more naturally.
- Save Time: For busy users, it can help draft messages more quickly, especially in professional settings.
A Focus on Privacy
When using an AI tool to handle personal messages, privacy is a major concern. Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, built the Writing Help feature with this in mind, using a system called Private Processing.
This technology is designed to protect your information. When you use Writing Help, neither WhatsApp nor Meta can read your original message or the AI-generated suggestions. Your requests are processed without being linked to you, and the messages remain end-to-end encrypted. Independent security researchers have reviewed the design of this technology to help validate its privacy protections.
To give you complete control, the feature is optional and turned off by default. You must choose to enable it in your settings to use it. The AI only activates when you tap the pencil icon; it does not process your text otherwise.
Who Should Use This Feature?
While using AI to chat with close friends might feel impersonal, the tool has several practical applications.
- Professional Communication: It can help you draft clear and respectful messages to colleagues, clients, or businesses.
- Difficult Conversations: When you need to be supportive or handle a sensitive topic, the AI can suggest phrasing that is both gentle and clear.
- Non-Native Speakers: It can be a valuable learning aid for those who want to improve their fluency and confidence in a language.
- Creative Fun: The “funny” style can be used to add some lighthearted humor to your chats with friends.
The Writing Help feature is currently being rolled out to English-language users in the United States and a few other countries. There are plans to expand it to more languages and regions in the future.