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TECH & AI
WhatsApp Is Getting A New CEO From The Fintech World
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Meta is shaking up the leadership over at its popular messaging platform WhatsApp. Will Cathcart, the longtime head of WhatsApp, announced Monday that he is stepping down after leading the encrypted messaging service for seven years. He will be replaced by Kunal Shah, the founder and CEO of CRED, an Indian fintech startup best known for rewarding users who pay their credit card bills on time.

“WhatsApp is in the strongest position it’s ever been — and that felt like the right moment to step back,” wrote Cathcart in a post on X on Monday. “We scaled end-to-end encrypted messaging to more than three billion people. We brought it to group chats, companion devices, new surfaces — and defended people’s right to a private conversation across the globe.” Cathcart will no longer call the shots at WhatsApp, but he is not leaving Meta altogether. Instead, he is moving into a new role at the company where he will “build new products from the ground up,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Monday.

The leadership change comes as Meta is spending enormous amounts of money on the infrastructure needed to train and run advanced AI models. The company raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to between $125 billion and $145 billion, up from its previous projection of $115 billion to $135 billion.

At the same time, Meta has been looking for new ways to make money beyond its core advertising business. This year, the company started rolling out paid subscription plans across its apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meta Head of Product Naomi Gleit said in an Instagram post at the time that more plans were on the way for Meta AI, online creators, and businesses. WhatsApp Plus, for example, costs $2.99 a month and gives users access to extra features such as custom app themes and icons, special effect stickers, exclusive ringtones, additional pinned chats, and options to customize chat lists.

Shah will now take over WhatsApp as CEO during this new phase for the company. CRED, which he founded in 2018, is a fintech company in India that offers products around payments, lending, insurance, wealth management, and lifestyle services. The company says it has 17 million monthly members and processes more than 40% of India’s credit card bill payments. “Kunal built CRED into one of India’s most important technology companies, and he brings the kind of builder mentality and global perspective that will serve him well in running the world’s biggest messaging app,” wrote Zuckerberg in his post. The move also comes with a major investment. In a press release, CRED announced that it is raising around $900 million in a new Series H round led by Meta. The deal values CRED at over $4 billion and gives Meta a minority stake in the company. CRED said Meta will not have access to customer information as part of the investment.



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TECH & AI
Meta’s Latest App Looks Like Reddit
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Meta has a new app on the App Store, and it looks an awful lot like Reddit. The app, called Forum, is “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about,” according to its App Store page. In practice, it is just a standalone app version of Facebook’s existing Groups feature, in which Facebook users can join groups and participate in discussions. In the new standalone app, the feed is entirely focused on the conversations taking place in the groups you are already a part of on your existing Facebook account. Forum and Facebook are still linked, meaning that you can enter Forum with your Facebook login, and whatever you post on there will be visible in your groups on the Facebook app as well. Some readers might be getting deja vu, and rightfully so, because this is Meta’s second attempt at launching a stand-alone Facebook Groups app. Then known as Facebook, the company launched a similar, dedicated app back in 2014 that was ultimately discontinued in 2017.

Perhaps to spice things up a bit, this time around, Meta is also including a dedicated AI assistant in the app. The “Ask” feature on the app will rely on the information posted on the group pages to respond to users looking for “opinions, advice or recommendations,” Meta said. There is also an additional AI assistant for group admins, which will supposedly assist them with tasks like content moderation.

Some financial analysts considered the app a direct threat to Reddit, causing the company’s stock to end the day down more than 5%, but the apps have vastly different existing user bases. Either way, it’s too soon to tell whether there will eventually be significant user migration from Reddit to Forum. This isn’t Meta’s first attempt at making its own version of an already successful app or feature. The company released its Twitter competitor app Threads in 2023, and most recently, it debuted Instants, an Instagram app that aims to replicate the successes of Snapchat and BeReal with instant, disappearing photos.

Interestingly, this time around, Meta released this app with little fanfare. There was no major announcement or press release that we could find. The app just appeared on the App Store, and some eagle-eyed users noticed it. Which raises the question, could this be the start of an AI-enabled flood of new apps that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly promised employees? Late last month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece detailing a companywide meeting in which Zuckerberg talked about Meta’s AI overhaul that has been used to justify a brutal round of layoffs. According to the report, Zuckerberg touted the efficiency gains from infusing AI into workflows and how the company will “be able to spin up more new projects” now because of this. Those new projects, according to the report, include creating more apps. “So like Chris (Cox, Meta’s chief product officer) and I have been talking about, ‘all right, well, can we build 50 new apps? Like, yeah, probably,” Zuckerberg is quoted to have said in the article. “But we probably should start by doing a few before we just, like, ramp up trying to do 50 all at once.”



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TECH & AI
Introducing a Completely Private Way to Chat With AI
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Chatting with AI has quickly become a critical part of how people get information and ask important questions. These questions can be deeply sensitive or personal, like health issues,  loan details, or career advice.
Today, we’re launching Incognito Chat with Meta AI on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app, a new way to have completely private conversations with AI. Built on top of WhatsApp’s Private Processing technology, Incognito Chat lets you talk to Meta AI in a way that is invisible to anyone else.
Other apps have introduced incognito-style modes, but they can still see the questions coming in and the answers going out. Incognito Chat with Meta AI is truly private, meaning no one — not even Meta — can read your conversations.
When you start an Incognito Chat with Meta AI on WhatsApp, you’re creating a private, temporary conversation that only you can see. Your messages are processed in a secure environment that even Meta cannot access. Your conversations are not saved and by default, your messages disappear — giving you space to ask questions and explore ideas without anyone watching.

We believe this private way of chatting has potential to be part of several ways people chat with AI on WhatsApp. In the coming months, we’ll also introduce Sidechat protected by Private Processing on WhatsApp. Side Chat with Meta AI will give you private help with any WhatsApp chat with context of what’s being discussed, without disrupting the main conversation.
Incognito Chat with Meta AI is rolling out on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app over the coming months. You can learn more about how Incognito Chat with Meta AI works here.



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