WhatsApp’s new AI feature lets you skip the scroll

By Trevor Mogg Published June 25, 2025

Tushar Mehta/Digital Trends

If you’ve ever opened a group chat on WhatsApp and felt a knot in your stomach at the sight of endless unread messages, help is at hand.

Meta-owned WhatsApp has just announced Private Message Summaries, which does what it says on the tin by offering an overview of your unread messages, saving you from endless scrolling as you try to get your head around the content of a conversation.

Recommended Videos

In the company’s own words, WhatsApp’s new Private Message Summaries feature uses Meta AI “to privately and quickly summarize unread messages in a chat, so you can get an idea of what is happening, before reading the details in your unread messages.”

Message Summaries uses Meta’s Private Processing technology. This allows Meta’s AI smarts to create a response without Meta or WhatsApp ever seeing your messages or the private summaries.

Additionally, others in the chat won’t know that you chose to summarize your unread messages.

How to use Private Message Summaries

Private Message Summaries won’t automatically appear. Instead, you’ll see a “summarize privately” message appear intermittently on the same button that displays how many unread messages you have. Simply tap on the button to bring up a summary of your undead messages.

Message Summaries is rolling out in English to U.S.-based users, with WhatsApp aiming to bring it to other languages and countries later this year.

Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the you-know-what, so try it out for yourself to gauge the accuracy of WhatsApp’s new Private Message Summaries feature. We certainly hope it’ll be free of the mishaps that plagued Apple’s much-mocked AI-powered notification summaries, which made headlines for all the wrong reasons toward the end of last year.

In other WhatsApp news, Meta recently announced that ads are coming to the messaging app for the first time in its 16-year history … though you may never see them.

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Computing

The memory crisis isn’t going to ease, and you will pay the price for it, says a research firm

Forty to 50% higher this quarter, 30 to 40% more next quarter, and no real relief until 2028. Plan accordingly.

RAM memory chips

If you were hoping the memory crisis was about to ease up, I have some bad news for you. It comes directly from Wall Street.

Your next smartphone, laptop, or tablet could cost even more, regardless of whether it has recently been subject to a price hike.

Phones

Screens before age two may come with serious developmental risks, study warns

Using a phone or a tablet to keep your baby occupied is not a good idea.

Kid using an iPad

Screens have become the digital pacifier for many babies. Phones and tablets are used during feeding, bedtime, chores, and moments when parents need a break. A major new study now warns that regular screen use before age two may carry developmental risks.

Researchers from four UK universities say babies and toddlers under two should avoid regular intentional screen time. The review links higher screen exposure in the first two years with sleep problems, language delays, behavioural difficulties, obesity risk, short-sightedness, and later problems with friendships and social interactions.

Phones

I tried the AI-powered Extend photo trick in iOS 27, and it blew past my expectations

The Extend feature won't fool everyone, but for casual social media edits, it's surprisingly easy to rely on.

Photography, Wood, Electronics

I wasn’t among the first to install the iOS 27 developer beta, but once I did, I began appreciating the changes Apple has made. The Photos app, in particular, has received one of its most substantial upgrades, adding an improved Clean Up tool, Spatial Reframing, and the new Extend feature, the one I was most eager to try.

After spending some time with it on my iPhone 17, here’s how the tool has performed so far. Spoiler alert: it’s one of the most substantial additions to Apple’s previously slim lineup of AI features. I’ve tried the feature on several different photos, including a selfie I took in front of a dam in northern India, photos of food items on a table, and shots taken indoors and outdoors.