If anonymously sourced reports are any indication, the long-delayed release of the new Siri, Apple’s AI-powered assistant updated for the supposedly AI-centric consumer expectations of the 2020s, is finally imminent. But a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests that Apple is acting a little sheepish about some privacy compromises it may or may not have recently made as it has prepared Siri for prime time.
To back up a bit, back in January, Google and Apple announced a partnership that essentially allowed Apple to rent an AI model. “Apple determined that Google’s AI technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users,” a joint statement from the two companies said.
So far, information about Apple Foundation Models, the AI software core that Apple and other software developers can access for their AI needs within Apple device ecosystems, has not been updated to acknowledge the new Google connection. In Gurman’s telling, that’s not just because Apple is embarrassed that its in-house AI operations went badly—including the departure of the company’s AI chief. It’s also because Apple needs Google’s cloud infrastructure, and that infrastructure may not be in keeping with Apple’s past privacy standards.
“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,” Gurman writes.
Apple, Gurman says…
“…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.”
If this is the plan, it might be an unwelcome change in the way Apple goes about handling its deep learning-related tasks that will disappoint privacy-focused Apple fans. Apple’s tight privacy around, for instance, face detection data sets the standard here. Faces are recognized on your device, and that data is encrypted on your device. Only then does any data go to the cloud.
As it stands now, your health data is “processed locally on your device to remove data that may personally identify you.” The vocalizations you use to trigger Siri, for now, are processed on your device.
Apple’s reassurances so far, Gurman says, have included saying new Siri will still rely on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, a feature announced in 2024 alongside Apple Intelligence, and touted as “a groundbreaking cloud intelligence system designed specifically for private AI processing.” But some granular, but crucial, details about this are still up in the air.
To spell it out a bit, Siri is about to have features that make it indistinguishable in many ways from an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, and using a chatbot is sort of a privacy nightmare. Users expose their innermost thoughts and feelings to an LLM, which then records those in a memory document that informs later interactions. By default, it also uses individual interactions to refine user experiences across the board.
Currently, Apple doesn’t have to disclose where data about your innermost feelings are stored, because Siri just doesn’t have any such information. Many Apple fans would bristle if the answer was “on a Google server somewhere.”
With that in mind, Gurman writes…
“Apple will still make privacy a centerpiece of its presentation at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. It’s likely to argue that its approach is fundamentally different from rivals that broadly train models on user interactions and cloud-stored histories […] Apple will place tighter limits around how memory works, including restrictions on what information can persist and how long it can be retained.”
Gurman’s report says users will be able to choose, for instance, how long Siri stores conversation data: 30 days, a year, or forever. But such options are unlikely to placate all privacy-minded Apple users.
In any case, we’ll know more when new Siri is announced, according to Gurman, at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, which starts on June 8.
