New Siri: Apple sticks to data protection strategy
On Monday, Apple will present iOS 27 for the first time at WWDC developer conference. AI and a smarter Siri are the focus, with a continued data-saving strategy.
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When Apple most likely presents its new voice assistant Siri today at the WWDC developer conference starting at 7 p.m. German time, the company will continue to insist on the topic of data protection. This is what market observers expect. The plan: Apple will try to make up for lost ground with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Co. with arguments typical for the company, including the fact that as many of the data processed by Apple Intelligence and Siri as possible remains on the device and no training with user data takes place. “AI, but private” is considered a possible motto.
Still “local first”
Everything that cannot be processed locally on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad will, as is already the case, end up in the cloud, but Apple will continue to rely on its so-called PCC approach, i.e., Private Cloud Compute, where Apple itself cannot see user information thanks to strong encryption. If the calculation takes place on Google's servers, because Apple is now also using Gemini models for the first time, Google's own private AI compute would have to be used. Alternatively, Apple could also use technology from Nvidia or build something of its own.
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To improve local AI, Apple has been allowed to create distillates of Google's latest Gemini models, according to a report by The Information, which can then run directly on iPhone, Mac, or iPad thanks to Apple Silicon. These are said to be significantly more powerful than Apple's local models. On the cloud side, Apple will pursue a dual approach as mentioned: its fleet of PCC-capable servers based on Ultra chips, plus the hardware at Google Cloud. Most recently, it was said here that these are Nvidia's Blackwell-B200 chips, which use Nvidia's own “Confidential Compute” feature. The latter promises to preserve the confidentiality and integrity of AI models but is said to cost almost no performance.
Fear of data protection disasters
Apple apparently expects that potential data protection disasters threaten, especially in connection with agentic systems. Since the new Siri will work contextually with user data for the first time – a feature that has been expected for two years – the company cannot afford any missteps here.
A second topic that is increasingly coming to the fore in terms of AI is also interesting: usage costs. Providers are increasing API costs or withdrawing flat-rate concepts from the market. Apple has not charged a cent for Apple Intelligence so far. This could also be an argument for the service, should Apple not change this in the foreseeable future.
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