Synthetic intelligence has clearly been the {industry} craze for the previous couple years. Whereas massive language fashions are extremely succesful, they’ve at all times include a little bit of a compromise: privateness. In the end, you’re nonetheless utilizing a mannequin hosted within the cloud, and your entire conversations are saved on some server.
Apple’s at all times had privateness on the core of its merchandise – so within the months main as much as the debut of Apple’s AI options, many individuals questioned: how would Apple deal with it? As we speak, we delve into precisely how.
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On-device fashions
This one is a bit apparent, however Apple Intelligence options are powered by on-device fashions. That’s why there’s such a strict gadget requirement. You may solely make the most of Apple Intelligence if in case you have an iPhone 15 Professional or iPhone 16 mannequin. On the iPad and Mac facet, it’s a bit extra lenient, with all M1 gadgets being supported.
Both method, that gadget requirement isn’t strict for no purpose, it’s as a result of working massive language fashions on gadget requires loads of energy and loads of reminiscence. To be particular, it requires 8GB of unified reminiscence, which Apple solely begun delivery on the iPhone 15 Professional.
With on gadget fashions, any requests you make don’t go away your cellphone. Granted, not each Apple Intelligence request will run on-device. Apple additionally has non-public cloud compute for heavier requests, which I’ll clarify in a bit. That mentioned, for probably the most half, present Apple Intelligence options lean closely on the chipset in your gadget, akin to Notification summaries and Genmoji. This retains your requests and private info native.
Apple’s additionally expanded the capabilities of on gadget fashions this yr at WWDC25, permitting builders to implement options utilizing Apple’s on gadget fashions, in any other case referred to as Apple Foundational Fashions. This’ll doubtlessly deter builders from utilizing suppliers like OpenAI or Google Gemini for passing your non-public person knowledge to, although there’s the key indisputable fact that Apple Intelligence is just accessible on a small variety of gadgets.
Non-public Cloud Compute
As alluded to earlier, Apple additionally has a cloud resolution for dealing with Apple Intelligence requests. It wasn’t in motion a ton throughout iOS 18, nevertheless it’s being utilized a good bit extra with iOS 26. For instance, now you can use Siri Shortcuts to ship prompts to Apple fashions, together with cloud fashions.
Apple has an extremely detailed weblog put up on how Non-public Cloud Compute retains your person info non-public. Briefly, the system is constructed to not retain info – and you’ll confirm that. On high of constructing the system in such a method that person knowledge wouldn’t be accessible by Apple or an attacker, Apple wished to launch the software program photographs for Non-public Cloud Compute, permitting impartial researchers to confirm Apple’s claims.
You may be taught extra about Apple’s Non-public Cloud Compute and the way it works in our put up right here. It’s a quite attention-grabbing system, and is actually industry-leading for server-based AI privateness.
ChatGPT Integration
Final however not least, Apple has a particular deal with OpenAI to make sure that Apple person knowledge isn’t retained by OpenAI, and that Apple person requests aren’t utilized in coaching knowledge for future fashions. There’s additionally the truth that requests are by no means despatched to ChatGPT with out the person offering permission.
Final month, The New York Instances sued OpenAI, and the court docket demanded that OpenAI must retain ChatGPT person knowledge indefinitely. Historically, OpenAI deletes this knowledge from its techniques inside 30 days.
Some folks have questioned if that impacts Apple customers, however relaxation assured, OpenAI has acknowledged that enterprise clients using Zero Information Retention APIs aren’t impacted, as a result of OpenAI wouldn’t have saved that knowledge at any level.
Given this reality, utilizing ChatGPT via Siri is technically the most non-public method of accessing these fashions – highlighting Apple’s underlying dedication to person privateness, even within the age of AI.
My favourite Apple accent suggestions:
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