WhatsApp to be flooded with more AI features despite user backlash
WhatsApp is planning to add a new artificial intelligence (AI) features to its service despite a user backlash against the technology.
The private messaging app said it would explore adding AI-powered writing suggestions and summaries to the service.
The decision is likely to frustrate many of its users amid criticism of the app's decision to include parent company Meta's AI chatbot within its service.
WhatsApp now features a button to pull up the Meta AI chatbot, which can answer questions in English in a similar manner to ChatGPT. It also offers AI-powered search suggestions.
The Meta AI button, which takes the form of a glowing blue ring within the app, has left users annoyed and asking for ways to turn it off. Users on Reddit have said they 'hate' the tool and branded it 'bug-ridden rubbish'.
A WhatsApp spokesman said last week that its AI features were 'entirely optional, and people can choose to use them or not'.
The spokesman added: 'We think giving people these options is a good thing, and we're always listening to feedback from our users to make WhatsApp better.'
Cyber security experts also questioned whether WhatsApp's decision to add more AI tools represented a 'compromise' on privacy.
In order to handle AI requests, some data from a user's message would need to be processed on external servers, rather than the user's smartphone. Meta said its system would be built in such a way that no third party would be able to see the contents of a message from a user.
Meta said: 'No one except you and the people you're talking to can access or share your personal messages, not even Meta or WhatsApp.'
But Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cyber security adviser at NordVPN, said: 'It's still a compromise. Any time data leaves your device – no matter how securely – it introduces new risks.
'WhatsApp has clearly worked to reduce those risks, but it's a balancing act between user demand for smart features and the foundational promise of end-to-end encryption.'
WhatsApp said it planned to build the tools in a manner that 'allows our users around the world to use AI in a privacy-preserving way'.
WhatsApp's encryption technology, which means nobody but the sender and recipient of a message can read it, makes it technically challenging to add AI prompts.
The company said it had developed a technology called Private Processing, which would soon allow users to make a 'confidential and secure' request to an AI tool that can then re-write their messages or send a summary of recent posts in a group chat.
The new feature was announced at LlamaCon 2025 at the company's Menlo Park headquarters. Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, also revealed a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive, said the company now had almost one billion people using its AI products.
Separately, Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, told the event that nearly a third of the technology giant's code was being written by AI.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Analysts unveil bold forecast for Alphabet stock despite ChatGPT threat
Analysts unveil bold forecast for Alphabet stock despite ChatGPT threat originally appeared on TheStreet. You typed in a question and clicked a few links, and Google could get paid if you landed on an ad. For years, that simple cycle helped turn Google into a trillion-dollar titan. But now, that model is under threat. 💵💰💰💵 AI-powered chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT are rapidly changing how people find answers. Instead of browsing through links, users are getting direct summaries on AI. These 'zero-click' searches quietly erode the economics that built the modern internet. The number of users is growing fast. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in April that ChatGPT already has 'something like 10% of the world" in terms of users, pegging the number closer to 800 million, Forbes reported. Even Google seems to know it. It's giving AI answers, called AI Overviews, right at the top of the page. "What's changing is not that fewer people are searching the that more and more the answers to Google are being answered right on Google's page. That AI box at the top of Google is now absorbing that content that would have gone to the original content creators," Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in a CNBC interview. Alphabet () , Google's parent company, isn't showing any cracks just yet. In April, the company posted first-quarter revenue of $90.23 billion, topping Wall Street expectations. Earnings per share came in at $2.81, far above the forecasted $ the backbone of Google's business, brought in $66.89 billion, accounting for nearly three-quarters of total revenue. Its 'Search and other' segment rose almost 10% year over year, hitting $50.7 billion. Meanwhile, Google's own AI tools are starting to show traction. AI Overviews now has 1.5 billion users per month, up from 1 billion in October, the company said. So far, the numbers suggest that AI isn't cannibalizing Google's business yet. Bank of America remains bullish on Alphabet stock. The firm reiterated a buy rating and a price target of $200, which implies a potential 15% upside from current levels, according to a recent research report. The firm said in May, Google's global average daily web visits held steady at 2.7 billion, unchanged from the previous month and down 2% from a year earlier. ChatGPT, meanwhile, saw a 3% month-over-month increase to 182 million, marking a 105% jump the U.S., Google traffic slipped 2% year-over-year to 524 million daily visits, while ChatGPT surged 112% over the same period to 26 million. Although Google has highlighted the growing reach of its AI Overviews, analysts are uncertain whether it's translating into more traffic. 'So far, we are not seeing a lift in Google traffic from AI Overviews expansion, though we think the search experience is much improved,' the analysts wrote. The competition is real. Google's global search share also edged down in May, falling 8 basis points month-over-month and 123 basis points year-over-year to 89.6%, according to Statcounter. Still, Bank of America analysts remain optimistic on Alphabet stock. "While ChatGPT's traffic continues to grow rapidly, we think Google remains well-positioned given its scale, multi-product reach, data assets, and robust monetization infrastructure," the analysts said. "AI can expand overall search monetization by better understanding the intent behind complex and long-tail queries that were previously hard to monetize," they added. Morningstar's Malik Ahmed Khan echoed that sentiment, saying Alphabet's diverse revenue streams and global exposure should cushion any hits, even as regulatory and AI risks mount, according to a May research report. Alphabet stock closed at $174.92 on June 6. The stock is down 8% unveil bold forecast for Alphabet stock despite ChatGPT threat first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 6, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 6, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Inside the Secret Meeting Where Mathematicians Struggled to Outsmart AI
On a weekend in mid-May, a clandestine mathematical conclave convened. Thirty of the world's most renowned mathematicians traveled to Berkeley, Calif., with some coming from as far away as the U.K. The group's members faced off in a showdown with a 'reasoning' chatbot that was tasked with solving problems they had devised to test its mathematical mettle. After throwing professor-level questions at the bot for two days, the researchers were stunned to discover it was capable of answering some of the world's hardest solvable problems. 'I have colleagues who literally said these models are approaching mathematical genius,' says Ken Ono, a mathematician at the University of Virginia and a leader and judge at the meeting. The chatbot in question is powered by o4-mini, a so-called reasoning large language model (LLM). It was trained by OpenAI to be capable of making highly intricate deductions. Google's equivalent, Gemini 2.5 Flash, has similar abilities. Like the LLMs that powered earlier versions of ChatGPT, o4-mini learns to predict the next word in a sequence. Compared with those earlier LLMs, however, o4-mini and its equivalents are lighter-weight, more nimble models that train on specialized datasets with stronger reinforcement from humans. The approach leads to a chatbot capable of diving much deeper into complex problems in math than traditional LLMs. To track the progress of o4-mini, OpenAI previously tasked Epoch AI, a nonprofit that benchmarks LLMs, to come up with 300 math questions whose solutions had not yet been published. Even traditional LLMs can correctly answer many complicated math questions. Yet when Epoch AI asked several such models these questions, which were dissimilar to those they had been trained on, the most successful were able to solve less than 2 percent, showing these LLMs lacked the ability to reason. But o4-mini would prove to be very different. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] Epoch AI hired Elliot Glazer, who had recently finished his math Ph.D., to join the new collaboration for the benchmark, dubbed FrontierMath, in September 2024. The project collected novel questions over varying tiers of difficulty, with the first three tiers covering undergraduate-, graduate- and research-level challenges. By February 2025, Glazer found that o4-mini could solve around 20 percent of the questions. He then moved on to a fourth tier: 100 questions that would be challenging even for an academic mathematician. Only a small group of people in the world would be capable of developing such questions, let alone answering them. The mathematicians who participated had to sign a nondisclosure agreement requiring them to communicate solely via the messaging app Signal. Other forms of contact, such as traditional e-mail, could potentially be scanned by an LLM and inadvertently train it, thereby contaminating the dataset. The group made slow, steady progress in finding questions. But Glazer wanted to speed things up, so Epoch AI hosted the in-person meeting on Saturday, May 17, and Sunday, May 18. There, the participants would finalize the final batch of challenge questions. Ono split the 30 attendees into groups of six. For two days, the academics competed against themselves to devise problems that they could solve but would trip up the AI reasoning bot. Each problem the o4-mini couldn't solve would garner the mathematician who came up with it a $7,500 reward. By the end of that Saturday night, Ono was frustrated with the bot, whose unexpected mathematical prowess was foiling the group's progress. 'I came up with a problem which experts in my field would recognize as an open question in number theory—a good Ph.D.-level problem,' he says. He asked o4-mini to solve the question. Over the next 10 minutes, Ono watched in stunned silence as the bot unfurled a solution in real time, showing its reasoning process along the way. The bot spent the first two minutes finding and mastering the related literature in the field. Then it wrote on the screen that it wanted to try solving a simpler 'toy' version of the question first in order to learn. A few minutes later, it wrote that it was finally prepared to solve the more difficult problem. Five minutes after that, o4-mini presented a correct but sassy solution. 'It was starting to get really cheeky,' says Ono, who is also a freelance mathematical consultant for Epoch AI. 'And at the end, it says, 'No citation necessary because the mystery number was computed by me!'' Defeated, Ono jumped onto Signal early that Sunday morning and alerted the rest of the participants. 'I was not prepared to be contending with an LLM like this,' he says, 'I've never seen that kind of reasoning before in models. That's what a scientist does. That's frightening.' Although the group did eventually succeed in finding 10 questions that stymied the bot, the researchers were astonished by how far AI had progressed in the span of one year. Ono likened it to working with a 'strong collaborator.' Yang Hui He, a mathematician at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and an early pioneer of using AI in math, says, 'This is what a very, very good graduate student would be doing—in fact, more.' The bot was also much faster than a professional mathematician, taking mere minutes to do what it would take such a human expert weeks or months to complete. While sparring with o4-mini was thrilling, its progress was also alarming. Ono and He express concern that the o4-mini's results might be trusted too much. 'There's proof by induction, proof by contradiction, and then proof by intimidation,' He says. 'If you say something with enough authority, people just get scared. I think o4-mini has mastered proof by intimidation; it says everything with so much confidence.' By the end of the meeting, the group started to consider what the future might look like for mathematicians. Discussions turned to the inevitable 'tier five'—questions that even the best mathematicians couldn't solve. If AI reaches that level, the role of mathematicians would undergo a sharp change. For instance, mathematicians may shift to simply posing questions and interacting with reasoning-bots to help them discover new mathematical truths, much the same as a professor does with graduate students. As such, Ono predicts that nurturing creativity in higher education will be a key in keeping mathematics going for future generations. 'I've been telling my colleagues that it's a grave mistake to say that generalized artificial intelligence will never come, [that] it's just a computer,' Ono says. 'I don't want to add to the hysteria, but in many ways these large language models are already outperforming most of our best graduate students in the world.'
Forbes
2 hours ago
- Forbes
4 ChatGPT Prompts Emerging Leaders Should Be Using In 2025
Using ChatGPT to help develop as an effective leader Whether you're a teen entrepreneur building your first business team or an educator stepping into department leadership, the desire to lead effectively is often stronger than the knowledge of how to do it well. The challenge? Most leadership development happens through expensive coaching, lengthy programs, or trial-and-error experiences that can be costly and time-consuming. Artificial intelligence offers a practical solution. When used strategically, ChatGPT becomes more than a chatbot—it transforms into a personal development coach that helps clarify thinking and strengthen decision-making skills. These four ChatGPT prompts help emerging leaders build self-awareness, navigate real-world challenges, and lead with greater confidence. Self-awareness distinguishes effective leaders from those who are not, yet most people lack training in productive self-reflection. This prompt positions ChatGPT as an executive coach, generating questions that dig beneath surface-level concerns. Rather than vague journaling, this approach creates structured reflection. The AI identifies patterns, such as perfectionism, fear of visibility, or unclear priorities, that may be limiting progress. How to maximize results: After answering the five questions, follow up with: "Can you summarize the mindset I seem to be operating from? What belief is driving my hesitation?" This moves the conversation from symptoms to root causes. A teen entrepreneur might discover they're avoiding reaching out to potential customers not because they lack time, but because they fear adults won't take them seriously. A teacher might realize they're hesitating to implement new classroom management strategies not because of workload, but because they're worried about appearing inexperienced to their colleagues. This awareness alone can shift behavior and open new opportunities. New leaders typically either over-function by attempting to control every detail or under-function by failing to establish clear expectations. This prompt provides a preview of common challenges and practical prevention strategies. Anticipating leadership challenges enables proactive decision-making rather than reactive crisis management. Understanding potential pitfalls helps new leaders develop strategies before problems emerge. Make it specific: Add context for better results. For example: "I'm a teen founder leading my first team of three classmates on our social media marketing business. What traps should I watch out for when my team members are also my friends?" Or: "I'm a first-year teacher managing parent volunteers for our school fundraiser. How do I maintain authority while staying collaborative?" Advanced application: Request scenarios: "Give me an example of what micromanaging versus clear leadership looks like in a group chat with teen team members." This transforms abstract concepts into concrete behaviors you can recognize and adjust. Many first-time teen leaders discover that setting clear expectations with friends-turned-teammates strengthens their business relationships. Teachers often find that being direct about volunteer responsibilities yields better outcomes than relying on people to figure things out on their own. Effective leaders adjust their approach to suit the situation. This prompt helps explore different leadership styles and consider how each might affect team dynamics and project outcomes. When a teen entrepreneur faces team members who aren't meeting deadlines for their custom sticker business, or when a teacher deals with students who seem disengaged during group projects, ChatGPT might suggest: Directive approach: Implement stricter deadlines with clear consequences. A teen might create formal check-in schedules with team members, while a teacher might establish daily progress reports for project groups. Coaching approach: Meet individually with team members to identify obstacles and realign on goals. This builds relationships and addresses root issues, but requires a more significant time investment. Visionary approach: Reconnect the team to the larger purpose behind their work. A teen entrepreneur might remind their team about the impact their business will have on their college applications, while a teacher might help students see how their project connects to real-world applications. Follow-up question: "Which of these approaches aligns most with my leadership style, and how can I combine elements of all three without confusing the team?" This framework helps young leaders move beyond their default style to consider what the specific situation requires. Teen entrepreneurs often discover they've been trying to be everyone's friend instead of a clear leader, while new teachers realize they've been defaulting to the coaching approach when some situations require more direct guidance. This prompt shifts perspective from uncertainty to clarity by using your existing leadership knowledge. Instead of asking, "What should I do?" it asks, "What would the best version of me already know to do?" Advanced variation: "Act like my future self three years from now—someone who has grown as a leader. What advice would they give me about this situation?" This temporal shift helps make decisions based on long-term principles rather than short-term fears. For deeper insight: Ask ChatGPT to explain why that version of you would act that way. This reveals the values and principles you're developing as a leader. A teen entrepreneur might use this prompt when deciding whether to fire a team member who is consistently late to virtual meetings, while a teacher might apply it when considering how to address a parent who is undermining classroom policies. The "future self" approach often reveals that effective leadership requires having difficult conversations rather than avoiding them. These ChatGPT prompts are most effective when used consistently rather than sporadically. Schedule weekly 15-minute sessions to work through one prompt, focusing on current leadership challenges. Save responses that provide valuable insights and track patterns over time. The goal isn't to replace experience or mentorship but to accelerate learning through structured reflection. Leadership develops through practice, feedback, and iteration—ChatGPT creates more opportunities for productive self-examination. While AI can provide valuable frameworks and perspectives, real leadership development happens through application. Use these prompts to clarify thinking, then test insights through actual leadership situations. Document what works and what doesn't. Share learnings with mentors or peer groups. The combination of AI-powered reflection and real-world practice creates a powerful development cycle that enables emerging leaders to build capabilities more quickly than traditional methods alone. Leadership isn't about having all the answers—it's about asking better questions and acting on the insights. These ChatGPT prompts help accelerate that process, transforming everyday challenges into leadership development opportunities.
