WhatsApp is rolling out chats with third-party agents to iPhone users. The feature showed up in the WhatsApp beta for iOS 26.37.10.70 on TestFlight, and it lets someone connect an outside agent and talk to it without leaving the app.
WhatsApp already tested this on Android last month, and it’s now iOS’s turn, We covered the Android rollout when it first appeared, and the iOS version works the same way.
Users Can Add Up to Five Agents From WhatsApp’s Settings
As reported by WABetaInfo, setting up an agent happens inside WhatsApp’s own settings menu, not through a separate app. A short intro screen walks through how agent chats work, then users pick a name and a photo for the agent so it stands out from regular contacts in the chat list.
Once that’s saved, WhatsApp creates the chat and hands over an API key tied to it. That key goes to whichever service hosts the agent, and it’s what connects that service to the WhatsApp chat so the agent can start replying. Each account can hold up to five agents at once, and a key can be reset and replaced at any time from inside the chat.
Agent Chats Skip End-to-End Encryption
Every message sent to an agent runs through a Meta service that handles delivery on behalf of whoever built the agent, and that developer can read those messages as part of running the service. WhatsApp doesn’t classify agent chats as end-to-end encrypted for that reason.
Regular chats and calls between people on WhatsApp keep their end-to-end encryption. The change only applies to conversations with an agent, and disappearing messages aren’t available in those chats either.
An agent only sees what a user shares directly inside that one conversation. It can’t reach other chats, contacts, or media stored on the phone.
The Rollout Is Limited
WhatsApp is limiting the feature to a small number of beta users in select countries while it works out the rollout. There’s no public timeline for when it reaches everyone, and WhatsApp has a track record of taking months to move a beta feature like this into general availability.
Users will be limited to just five agents per account. WhatsApp also defines an agent loosely, it doesn’t have to be powered by AI at all, since a plain scripted bot can connect through the same API key setup.
Our Take
Agent chats look like WhatsApp building its own lightweight version of what Slack and Telegram already do with bots, tied to Meta’s AI push instead of a standalone developer platform. Routing every agent message through a Meta-run service instead of end-to-end encryption is a huge trade-off as it compromises on security and privacy.
