Whittaker, a veteran researcher who spent more than a decade at Google, pointed to a fundamental shift in the threat model where AI agents integrated into core operating systems are being granted expansive access to user data, undermining the assumptions that secure messaging platforms like Signal are built on. To function as advertised, these agents must be able to read messages, access credentials, and interact across applications, collapsing the isolation that E2EE relies on.

This concern is not theoretical. A recent investigation by cybersecurity researcher Jamieson O’Reilly uncovered exposed deployments of Clawdbot, an open-source AI agent framework, that were directly linked to encrypted messaging platforms such as Signal. In one particularly serious case, an operator had configured Signal device-linking credentials inside a publicly accessible control panel. As a result, anyone who discovered the interface could pair a new device to the account and read private messages in plaintext, effectively nullifying Signal’s encryption.