WhatsApp is the latest app to embrace AI. But rather than generating written messages on your behalf as Google is testing on Gmail, WhatsApp’s test involves the automatic creation of custom stickers generated on the fly.
The new feature, spotted by WABetaInfo, is available to a small number of users from the pool enrolled in WhatsApp’s Android beta programme.
Those selected from the group running version 2.23.17.14 report seeing a “Create” button in the sticker tab in the text box. Tapping this allows users to open a built-in generative AI engine that will produce a custom sticker to the user’s specifications.
The piece is accompanied by one user’s automatically generated creation. When asked to “describe your sticker”, the user requests a “cat laughing on a skateboard” – and the app duly delivers on this brief with a creation that is immediately available to use in Chat.
WABetaInfo said that the stickers are generated using “a secure technology offered by Meta”, which makes sense, given the company’s investment in artificial intelligence.
AI being AI, there’s always the chance that a user prompt will end up producing something offensive or otherwise inappropriate. In this instance, the site says you can flag any creation to Meta.
The report also added that these stickers are “easily recognisable” – though whether that means they’re actively flagged as generated by AI when sent or just obviously out of the ordinary isn’t entirely clear.
For now, the feature is only available to a small subset of a small subset – a fraction of those enrolled in the WhatsApp beta programme for Android. But WABetaInfo said that the feature will be “rolling out to more users over the coming weeks” so it’s worth checking in from time to time. Those on iOS will probably have a longer wait ahead of them.
