WhatsApp is preparing for an important update: it will soon be possible to send documents directly to Meta AI, the virtual assistant integrated into the app. An innovation that marks a leap in quality compared to current interactions, so far limited to text messages, voice notes and images. With the arrival of this function, we will no longer have to take screenshots of our files to allow Meta AI to read them and give us a response, as WhatsApp’s artificial intelligence will be able to read the entire contents of a file, understand its context, extract information, summarize entire sections or answer specific questions based on the original document. At the moment the function, identified by the portal WABetaInfois in the testing phase and is only available to a small group of beta testers. In the coming weeks it should be made available to a wider audience and, finally, arrive in the stable version of the app, the one we all use so to speak.
A renewed interface: the news
On the design front, Meta is redesigning the WhatsApp user experience. In a previous beta for Android, a section dedicated to AI had already appeared in the lower navigation bar: a centralized hub from which to start voice conversations, type questions, generate images and consult the history of interactions. The floating button in chats has been removed in these new betas to make the interface cleaner.
But the real turning point is the arrival of support for reading files and documents by Meta AI. Competitive AI chatbots have been offering this possibility for some time now. On Meta AI the only possible way to allow the reading of a document was to take a screenshot of all the pages that made it up (a rather cumbersome and cumbersome operation, even for documents of short length) and share the images produced with the chatbot. The new system finally eliminates this need, making it possible to send a file directly from the WhatsApp attachment menu or from the device’s file manager.
Meta’s strategy
Reading between the lines of this news, it is clear that Meta’s strategy is to keep users within its ecosystem, reducing the need to resort to external apps to complete certain operations.
The release of the new function will follow, as per “tradition”, first a distribution limited to a few beta testers, who will test its stability and performance, which should be followed by a global launch that will transform WhatsApp into a true daily productivity tool. In terms of timing, it is difficult to give a precise window regarding the launch. WABetaInfo limited itself to saying that the function «it is not yet available to everyone» and that «In the coming weeks, more users will be able to access the document sharing functionality and use it directly in chats with Meta AI».
