First spotted by MacRumors, a recent Apple Privacy Policy update mentions the addition of an AI Virtual Shopping Assistant inside the Apple Store app. The policy update provides more information on the data it collects, how it collects it, and what Apple is using it for. Here’s what we know.
According to the privacy policy,
“Apple collects and stores your account information, device identifiers, carrier information, chat information, and, where enabled, location data to personalize the chat experience, provide relevant responses, and if you opt in, to improve the virtual shopping assistant.”
Apple further mentions that all personal identifiers are scrubbed when a request is made.
With the implementation and advancement of Siri AI and Apple Intelligence, set to be released later this fall, Apple has further increased its use of Artificial Intelligence in both internal and public-facing apps. The new Siri app is a perfect example of this. Despite this, most support channels are human-based, with AI serving as a tool rather than a primary means of support.
Apple mentions that the only information shared with “partners” is to improve the model’s conversational response. It’s unclear who the “partners” are, but it could be what Apple uses to parse requests and provide feedback. The company adds,
“Apple will save these transcripts to make them available when you return to the Apple Store app, for our business analytics, and if you opt in, to improve the virtual shopping assistant. You can control whether your use of the virtual shopping assistant will be used to improve the experience by going to Account > Settings and tapping Chat Improvements within the Apple Store app.”
Apple has released new updates to both their public and developer betas that bring improvements to device speed, Siri AI, Liquid Glass, and much more. These updates are available to download via the Settings app on your device.
