Meta is making an AI push on all of its platforms with the Meta AI assistant. Recently, the company started testing the AI assistant on WhatsApp, with the beta versions of the Android and iOS apps getting a shortcut to the assistant above the list of chats for quick access.
Meta AI is an optional feature that WhatsApp users can ignore completely without having their experience affected, and it looks like Meta understands that. The latest beta version of the app for Android devices introduces the option to remove the Meta AI button from the Chats tab. The option is available in the Chats section of the app's settings and is beginning to pop up for some beta users this week.
Meta AI is like any other virtual assistant and can show real-time information from the web (using Microsoft Bing) for search queries and also offer context-based suggestions for discussions inside both individual and group chats. The assistant will also get various AI characters to make interaction with it more fun, and while all that sounds interesting, not everyone will want to bring AI into their chatting and messaging experience so it's good to see that Meta isn't forcing the feature on all users.
The option to remove the Meta AI shortcut is available on version 2.23.25.15 of the WhatsApp beta app on Android for some users and will likely make its way to iOS soon. As for the standard non-beta version of the app, it has neither the AI assistant nor the option to hide it at this time, and it's unclear when that will change.
