Signal co-founder says Confer encryption will be added to Meta AI

In short: Moxie Marlinspike says the privacy tech behind his chatbot Confer will be integrated into Meta AI to make AI chats harder for anyone else to read.

What happened

Moxie Marlinspike, a co-founder of the secure messaging app Signal, said on March 17, 2026 that Confer will integrate its encryption technology into Meta AI. Meta AI is Meta’s chatbot used across its products.

Confer is a ChatGPT-like service that launched in December 2025 with a strong focus on privacy. It uses end-to-end encryption, which means messages are scrambled so only the people in the chat can read them (like putting your words in a locked box that only you can open). Confer also uses passkeys through WebAuthn, which is a sign-in method that can use your phone’s lock screen instead of a password.

Confer runs conversations inside Trusted Execution Environments, or TEEs, which are protected areas inside a computer chip (like a sealed room inside a building). It also uses “remote attestation,” a way to prove that sealed room is set up correctly before data is processed. Marlinspike says this design keeps chats from being accessible to the service operator for training AI models or targeting ads.

Marlinspike said Confer will remain independent. But its privacy technology will underpin Meta AI and possibly future Meta products. He compared the plan to his earlier work bringing Signal’s encryption into WhatsApp.

Why it matters

Many people share sensitive details with chatbots, including health, money, and relationship problems. If Meta AI adopts Confer’s approach, more users could get stronger privacy protections, but there is still no public timeline for when this will roll out.

Source: Wired