Apple’s Upgraded Siri to Feature Auto-Delete Chat Function

Apple’s updated Siri will reportedly feature a function that automatically deletes chats.

As Bloomberg News reported Sunday (May 17), this is a feature that borrows from the company’s Messages app, and comes ahead of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference next month, where privacy is expected to be a central topic.

The standalone Siri app, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote, is meant to act as a repository for past Siri conversations and serve as an artificial intelligence chatbot akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

Users can enter the chat experience either via the standard Siri or by going into a new “Search or Ask” mode by swiping down from the top center of their screen.

With this new delete feature, the report said, users will be able to go to the settings panel within the Siri app and choose to keep conversations for 30 days, one year, or forever. The Messages app provides similar options, to the point that some watchdog groups have complained about government officials using it to erase their communications, Bloomberg added.

The report also noted that rival chatbots typically come with temporary or incognito chat modes that keep conversations from being stored or used for model training. Apple contends that these protections should be part of the system, not something users have to manually enable.

“If the approach works, Apple will have a new selling point on the privacy front — and a potential excuse if its software doesn’t run as smoothly as rival technology,” Gurman added.

Beyond the privacy issue, the report pointed out another noteworthy Siri feature, which allows users to choose whether the app opens to display a grid of previous conversations or a new chat at each app launch.

Apple said in March that it will highlight its AI advancements at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), scheduled for June 8-12.

Meanwhile, recent PYMNTS Intelligence research finds that rather than wanting a “robot concierge,” consumers are warming to AI “one mundane errand at a time.” As covered here last week, consumers do not need to understand AI models. Rather, they want a tool to help them complete tasks, with little at risk if the initial result falls short.

“That is why shopping and writing stand out as common, low-pressure uses,” the report added. “A wrong product link can be ignored, or a rewritten text can be edited. These are the kinds of experiences that let consumers try AI without feeling exposed.”