Snapchat built its whole identity on messages that vanish in seconds, and the AI feature now pinned to the top of 900 million users’ chats does the opposite of everything users were promised

The AI friend that nobody asked to move inIn 2023, Snap placed a chatbot called My AI permanently at the top of every user’s chat feed. What the chatbot does with everything you typeMost users assumed that because Snapchat messages disappear, their conversations with My AI worked the same way. At the same time, the ICO issued a broader warning to industry to assess privacy risks before bringing generative AI tools to market. Meanwhile, Snapchat reached 932 million monthly active users in Q2 2025, with daily active users hitting 469 million, up 9% year-over-year. Nearly every major social app has layered AI tools onto products users trusted for different reasons entirely.