creators

Meredith Whittaker: Signal president, AI Now co-founder

Meredith Whittaker has been president of the Signal Foundation since 2022, co-founded the AI Now Institute in 2017 and organised the 2018 Google Walkout.

Meredith Whittaker is an American technology researcher and privacy advocate who has been President of the Signal Foundation since September 2022; the foundation lists her as president and a board member. She spent 13 years at Google (2006–2019), where she founded Google Open Research and co-founded M-Lab, and was a core organiser of the Google Walkout of 1 November 2018, in which about 20,000 employees protested its handling of sexual harassment claims. In 2017 she co-founded the AI Now Institute with Kate Crawford to study AI's social implications, later serving as its faculty director and now as its chief advisor. She testified to the U.S. House on AI ethics in June 2019 and on facial recognition in January 2020, and was senior advisor on AI to FTC Chair Lina Khan from November 2021 until she joined Signal. At Signal she argues against weakening encryption and against AI agents that need a user's messages, calendar and card details, which she called "a kind of a backdoor" in June 2026. In July 2025 she joined the board of the German media group Hubert Burda Media. She has advised the White House, the FCC, the FTC and the European Parliament on tech policy.

Specialization

AI policy, encrypted messaging, privacy and surveillance

Country

United States