Apple is preparing a major overhaul of Siri for iOS 27, turning it into a full-fledged chatbot with ChatGPT-style conversations. A key privacy differentiator: the new standalone Siri app will let users automatically delete chats after 30 days or one year, or even right away, making it one of the most privacy-conscious AI assistants on the market. The feature-rich update may still ship as a public beta this fall.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
While Apple has maintained that it wants to keep user protections while also delivering AI, it feels like the general population is starting to realize that privacy requires trade-offs. But that may actually work to the company’s advantage. Apple can use the idea that it’s making the right choice on behalf of consumers to slyly cover up any AI shortcomings.
That brings us to iOS 27, which will offer a revamped Siri experience. With this move, Apple is shifting closer to the AI approach used by competitors. While its models remain branded as Apple Foundation Models, the company has opened up the hood of its technology and replaced much of it with Google’s Gemini — a clear winner in the AI space.
Apple is doing this because it was backed into a corner and had essentially no other option. The company knew that if its new Siri and AI features failed, investors and consumers would react poorly. Apple got some slack with the original Apple Intelligence in 2024, but the clock is now ticking fast. Tim Cook doesn’t want his final launch as chief executive officer to be a huge misstep.
When the company first introduced Apple Intelligence, it pitched a hybrid model: lightweight tasks were handled on devices themselves, while more advanced requests would run through cloud infrastructure powered by in-house server chips under what it calls Private Cloud Compute. The company has described that system as an extension of the iPhone’s security model in the cloud.
But Apple has been less specific about how the next-generation Siri infrastructure will actually be hosted and operated at scale. That’s because Apple will actually be leaning on Google’s cloud infrastructure for parts of the new Siri, something the company doesn’t want to emphasize — given how that might counter its current privacy approach.
Apple has said that the new Siri will use Private Cloud Compute, but it hasn’t gone as far as to say it will rely on the same chips, data centers and security as the Siri and Apple Intelligence features of today. One way to interpret that is Apple will allow Google to handle some of its security protections.
Most leading AI chatbots today rely heavily on histories and memory systems to personalize responses and improve future interactions. But Apple will place tighter limits around how memory works, including restrictions on what information can persist and how long it can be retained.
There’s also a particularly notable feature that borrows from the Messages app: auto-deleting chats. In the settings panel for the Siri app, users will be able to choose to keep conversations for 30 days, one year or forever.
MacDailyNews Take: How will competing chatbots ever be able to match that massive innovation? (read with dripping sarcasm)
As much as we love typing “outgoing CEO Tim Cook,” his final “going, going, gone” can’t come soon enough.
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