Apple’s Siri app in iOS 27 will automatically delete your conversations. It may also launch as a beta, too.

Apple’s first standalone Siri app, coming with iOS 27, will include an automatic deletion function for chat histories borrowed from the Messages app. Users will be able to configure the app to keep conversations for 30 days, one year, or forever. This feature, reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his newsletter Power On Sunday, is designed to set Apple’s approach to AI privacy as structurally different from competitors that offer temporary or incognito chat modes as optional settings users must manually enable.

The Siri app will act as a chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude, serving as a repository of past conversations that users can search for, continue, or delete. It can be accessed through the normal activation of Siri, through the side button or by the wake word, or by using the new “Search or Ask” mode initiated by swiping down from the top center of the screen. The app will support both voice and text input, file uploads, and responses from the web with images and bullet points. Users will be able to choose whether the app opens a grid of previous conversations or a new conversation each time.

The privacy architecture is Apple’s competitive differentiator, and its excuse. Competing chatbots rely heavily on conversation histories and memory systems to personalize responses and improve over time. Apple places strict limits on what information can go on and for how long it is stored, building limitations into the system itself rather than providing options. Meta introduced a temporary chat feature last week. Apple’s position is that such protections should not require users to log in.

The essence of the strategy makes the privacy framework more interesting than it appears on the surface. Apple has quietly replaced its AI infrastructure with Google’s Gemini, paying nearly $1 billion annually for a 1.2-trillion-parameter custom model that will power next-generation Siri. The company’s existing partnership with OpenAI is faltering, with OpenAI’s lawyers preparing for possible legal action over the ChatGPT-Siri deal that failed to deliver the subscription money OpenAI was expecting. iOS 27 will introduce a program called Extensions that allows users to install AI competitors for conversations and Siri questions using any model they choose, including Claude and Gemini, effectively reducing ChatGPT from a privileged partner to one option among many.

Gurman notes that Apple hasn’t been very specific about how the new Siri infrastructure will be managed and deployed at scale. The company said the improved Siri would use Private Cloud Compute, its extension of the iPhone’s security model to the cloud, but did not confirm whether it would rely on Apple-designed chips, data centers, and security architecture like the current system. The implication is that Google’s cloud infrastructure will handle some of the work, something Apple doesn’t want to emphasize given the controversy over its private messaging.

The auto-delete feature puts it in a smart way regardless of whether the privacy argument is fully relevant. By defaulting to systematic storage limits instead of permanent storage, Apple would want its AI assistant to be designed to forget, unlike systems designed to remember everything in order to improve. Whether users will appreciate that difference depends on whether they see the trade-off: a Siri that forgets your preferences after 30 days and a Siri that can’t learn from your history the way ChatGPT or Claude can.

Perhaps the most revealing detail in Gurman’s report is that the new Siri may launch as a beta, even after a two-year delay. An improved assistant was planned for 2024. Test versions of iOS 27 within Apple currently use the new Siri beta label and include a change that allows users to opt out. Apple is simultaneously developing AI smart glasses for 2027 that will use the same Gemini-powered Siri as the main interface, which means that the assistant needs to work reliably in all aspects of many forms next year.

Gurman puts it plainly: Tim Cook doesn’t want his final launch as CEO to be a mistake. Apple found “others are lax” with the original release of Apple Intelligence in 2024, but the competitive and regulatory landscape has changed. Google’s Gemini has increased its share of web traffic from 5.7% to 21.5%. The EU is preparing to force both Apple and Google to open their AI assistants to competitors under the Digital Markets Act. Android 17O of the Intellige program will be announced this week at Google Intelligence, in Google Intellige and Gemini the new Googlebook laptop platform Apple enters this area with Siri two years late, powered by a rival model, and possibly still labeled as unfinished.

The Genmoji update is a very simple piece of iOS 27 imagery but it follows the same pattern. Apple’s Apple-produced emoji feature was not well received when it was introduced: the images did not match the advertisements, and the models used so much power that the phones would heat up and drain their batteries. iOS 27 will add “Suggested Genmoji,” generated automatically from user photos and commonly typed phrases, in an effort to increase adoption of a feature that was supposed to demonstrate Apple Intelligence’s consumer appeal.

Apple’s privacy controversy comes at a time when the concept has never been seen in consumer hardware. Meta is facing lawsuits and a regulatory investigation over how its Ray-Ban smart glasses handle users’ photos. Google’s Android XR glasses will come with cameras and Gemini AI. Snap introduces consumer AR insights with built-in AI. In this environment, an AI assistant that automatically deletes your conversations and isn’t trained on your data is a real differentiator, as long as the assistant itself is good enough that people want to use it. That’s a question Apple couldn’t answer for 15 years. Whether Gemini, the beta label, and privacy changes change the answer will become clear in September.