New Delhi: WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out support for third-party AI agents on iPhone, allowing users to create and chat with external AI agents directly within the messaging app. The feature has appeared in WhatsApp beta for iOS and could eventually allow users to use specialised agents for tasks such as organising activities, drafting messages and planning their day.
The development marks a significant expansion of WhatsApp’s AI capabilities. Unlike Meta AI, which is developed by Meta, these third-party agents can be created and operated by independent developers and connected to a user’s WhatsApp account.
According to WABetaInfo, the feature has been spotted in WhatsApp beta for iOS version 26.37.10.70 through TestFlight. However, it is currently available only to a very limited number of beta testers in select countries. There is no confirmed timeline yet for a wider public rollout.
How third-party AI agents will work on WhatsApp
The upcoming feature will allow users to create an agent from WhatsApp’s settings. During the setup process, users can give the agent a name and profile photo.
WhatsApp then generates an API key that connects the agent to an external service operated by its developer. Once the connection is established, users can open a dedicated chat with the agent and interact with it much like they would with a normal WhatsApp contact.
Users will reportedly be able to create up to five third-party agents on their WhatsApp account. Each agent can be connected to a separate service, depending on how it has been developed and what capabilities the developer provides.
This means WhatsApp itself does not necessarily determine what an agent can do. A particular agent could be designed for planning, productivity, customer-service tasks, drafting messages or other specialised functions.
Third-party agents are different from Meta AI
WhatsApp already offers AI experiences developed by Meta, including Meta AI. The new third-party agent system is different because the agents are created and operated by external developers.
WhatsApp’s official information states that users can connect agents they create themselves or agents developed by other third parties. The agents can then be accessed through WhatsApp without requiring users to switch to another application.
The distinction is important because third-party agents may have different capabilities, policies and data-handling practices depending on their developers.
Users will therefore need to consider which external agent they connect to their WhatsApp account and what information they choose to share with it.
Privacy is a key limitation
One of the most important aspects of the new feature is its privacy model.
Regular WhatsApp conversations between users are protected by end-to-end encryption. However, WhatsApp says conversations with third-party agents are not considered end-to-end encrypted.
The reason is that messages exchanged with third-party agents are handled through a Meta service on behalf of the agent provider. WhatsApp’s official guidance states that third-party agents can access only the information that users share with them, but these conversations do not receive the same end-to-end encryption classification as person-to-person chats.
This makes it important for users to understand the difference between chatting with a regular WhatsApp contact and interacting with an external AI agent.
WhatsApp also says that third-party agents are independent services operated by their respective developers. Its terms for third-party agents specify that these agents are built, owned and operated by independent third parties rather than WhatsApp itself.
Agents cannot access all WhatsApp data
Despite the privacy limitation, third-party agents do not automatically gain access to a user’s entire WhatsApp account.
According to the India Today report, agents can read messages and content that users explicitly share with them. They do not get access to other personal chats, contacts or media stored on the user’s device.
This means users can decide what information an agent receives by choosing what they send in the dedicated conversation.
For example, if a user asks an agent to help organise a schedule, the agent would only receive the information shared with it rather than automatically scanning unrelated personal conversations.
However, users should still exercise caution when sharing sensitive information because the agent is connected to an external service.
Disappearing messages are not supported
Another limitation is that third-party agent conversations reportedly do not support disappearing messages.
This means users cannot rely on WhatsApp’s disappearing-message feature to automatically remove messages from these conversations.
Users can, however, reset the API key if they want to disconnect or replace the key associated with their agent. This provides a way to manage the connection between WhatsApp and the external service.
The API-key system also means that users need to follow the setup process provided by the agent’s developer before the service can be used inside WhatsApp.
Feature first appeared on Android
The iPhone rollout follows earlier work on Android.
WhatsApp had already been developing support for third-party agents on Android, where users could create an agent from the app’s settings, customise its identity and connect it to an external service using an API key.
The appearance of the feature in WhatsApp beta for iOS suggests that Meta is expanding the experiment across both major mobile platforms.
However, the feature remains in a limited testing phase, and its final functionality could change before a broader release.
What could AI agents do on WhatsApp?
The potential uses of third-party agents depend largely on the developers building them.
Unlike a conventional chatbot that simply answers questions, an AI agent can be designed around a particular task or workflow. For example, an agent could potentially help users organise tasks, prepare messages, plan activities or interact with an external service.
The concept also fits into a broader shift in the technology industry towards AI agents that can perform tasks rather than simply generate responses.
Meta itself has been expanding its use of AI agents. In India, the company launched Meta Business Agent for WhatsApp Business in 2026, allowing selected businesses to use an AI system to handle customer conversations and answer queries.
The third-party agent feature takes the idea in a different direction by allowing individual WhatsApp users to connect external agents to their accounts.
When will the feature reach all iPhone users?
For now, there is no confirmed public release date for third-party agent chats on iPhone.
The feature has been spotted in WhatsApp beta for iOS 26.37.10.70 and is reportedly available only to a limited number of testers in selected countries. This means most iPhone users may not see the option even after installing the latest WhatsApp version.
Beta testing also means the feature could be modified, expanded or delayed before it reaches the stable version of WhatsApp.
Users should therefore not assume that installing the latest regular WhatsApp update will immediately enable third-party AI agents.
WhatsApp moves towards an agent-powered future
The introduction of third-party agent chats could make WhatsApp more than a platform for conversations between people and businesses. By allowing external developers to connect their own agents, WhatsApp could become an interface through which users interact with a wider range of AI-powered services.
At the same time, the privacy distinction between ordinary WhatsApp chats and third-party agent conversations will be important for users to understand.
For now, the feature remains an early-stage rollout on iPhone. Its eventual usefulness will depend on which developers build agents for WhatsApp, what those agents can do and how widely Meta makes the system available.
Conclusion
WhatsApp is testing third-party AI agent chats on iPhone, giving users the ability to create up to five agents and connect them to external services through API keys. The feature has appeared in WhatsApp beta for iOS 26.37.10.70 and is currently limited to a small number of users in selected countries.
The feature could enable specialised agents for tasks such as planning and productivity, but there is an important privacy difference: conversations with third-party agents are not considered end-to-end encrypted. Users can control what they share with an agent, while the agent itself is operated by an independent developer.