WhatsApp mete agentes de IA de terceros en el iPhone: hasta 5 chats, pero NO van cifrados de punta a punta

WhatsApp is already testing on the iPhone something many people wanted and few fully understood: chats with third-party artificial intelligence agents. The feature shows up in iOS beta 26.37.10.70 (TestFlight), after earlier trials on Android. Public reports landed on September 23, 2026.

In practice, you can create up to five agents per account. You give them a name and photo, and you connect them to an external service with an API key (a technical password that identifies your access to the provider). Each agent lives in a dedicated 1:1 chat: it replies there, as if it were another contact. It is not a group and not a bot floating across all your threads: it is a separate conversation with its own history.

What matters for everyday privacy: the agent only sees what you send in that thread. It cannot read your other chats, your contact list, or your photos and videos outside that conversation. That limits the scope… but it does not make the chat “private” in the classic WhatsApp sense between two people.

Here is the detail worth reading slowly. WhatsApp makes clear —in WABetaInfo and Gadgets Now coverage, and in its official third-party agents terms— that these chats are NOT end-to-end encrypted. That encryption is the system where only you and the other person can read the message; not even WhatsApp sees the content. With agents, the message goes through a Meta secure service to the agent’s provider, and that provider receives, processes, and may store what you write, under its own policy. Normal person-to-person chats remain end-to-end encrypted.

There are more practical details. Disappearing messages are not supported in these agent threads. And the beta is very limited: few users, in select countries. There is still no date for a broad worldwide launch. If you do not see the option on your iPhone yet, that is normal: it is not open to everyone.

For a small business or everyday user in LatAm, the angle is clear: you will get assistants inside WhatsApp —useful for questions, reminders, or business flows— but you should not treat them like a private chat between two people. If you do not want an external provider to see sensitive data (prices, clients, documents, passwords), do not write it to that agent. Use the thread only for what you are willing to share with that service.

Bottom line: up to five agents, a dedicated chat, scope limited to that thread, and a privacy notice that is not fine print: no end-to-end encryption toward the provider. Worth testing carefully when it reaches your account.

At Presticorp we help SMBs use messaging and digital tools with judgment: adopt what is new without losing sight of day-to-day privacy.

Sources:

• WABetaInfo — WhatsApp is rolling out chats with third-party agents on iOS
• WhatsApp — Third-party agents terms
• Gadgets Now — WhatsApp testing third-party AI agents in chats (privacy)