New chatbot Siri: Apple focuses on data protection
Dialogues that delete themselves – and a limited memory function: Apple wants to position itself at the forefront of AI privacy with iOS 27.
Siri gets support from Google's Gemini, but is said to be more private.
(Image: Samuel Boivin / Shutterstock)
Even now, Apple relies more on data protection with its in-house AI system, Apple Intelligence, than competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google. Thus, as many requests as possible are answered locally on the device. If servers are actually necessary, the privacy-friendly Private Cloud Compute (PCC) is used, where Apple itself does not see any user content. Even with the upcoming improved chatbot Siri, which is expected to be released with iOS 27 in the fall, Apple will increasingly focus on data protection, according to a report from Sunday. Although the assistant function is said to be significantly more powerful, the company will emphasize the topic again, writes Bloomberg.
Private chat with AI
The features are said to include, among other things, that chats are automatically deleted if the user wishes. The new Siri app that Apple is planning is said to have a “private” mode, similar to a browser, where each session starts fresh. This is intended to make users feel safer than with AI competitors.
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Apple will therefore make data protection in artificial intelligence, which is increasingly perceived as important by users, a central point of its presentation at the developer conference WWDC in early June. “The company will likely explain that its approach is fundamentally different from that of competitors, who train their models largely on user interactions and cloud-stored history data,” writes Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Apple also wants to advertise that Apple Intelligence is ad-free – at least for now.
Data protection with Google Gemini
It remains unclear how Apple will reconcile data protection with the use of Google's Gemini. Some current models are said to run on Apple in the cloud and locally, and some on Google's own servers. How PCC is to be implemented remains unclear. However, Google recently promised a similar technology. Since Apple pays for Gemini – presumably one billion US dollars per year – the company will be able to determine how data protection is handled.
The question remains how good a chatbot Siri can be if memory and history features are partially restricted. The system is also supposed to finally get local context and access to apps – both functions that Apple announced years ago. Meanwhile, the company even has to pay 250 million dollars to users who filed a class action lawsuit (Case No. 5:25-cv-02668-NW) against the premature advertising of features that are still not available. On the other hand, it is positive for Apple that the company can benefit from Google's own training improvements in Gemini without having to disclose its user data.
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