TL;DR
Apple’s updated privacy policy for the Store app reveals a coming “Virtual Shopping Assistant.” It collects chat, device, and location data. Not live yet. Partial opt-out only.
Apple is preparing to add an AI-powered shopping assistant to the Apple Store app, according to a privacy policy update spotted by MacRumors. The updated document describes a “Virtual Shopping Assistant” that collects account information, device identifiers, carrier information, chat data, and optionally location data to personalise responses. The feature is not live yet.
Apple says it removes personal identifiers from chats before sharing data with partners, and that the information is used only to provide better conversational responses. Users cannot fully opt out of the assistant, but they can toggle off a “Chat Improvements” setting that controls whether Apple uses their conversations to improve the system. The setting is found under Account > Settings in the Apple Store app.
The assistant would be Apple’s second AI chatbot deployment after a similar feature in the Apple Support app, which is also not available to all users yet. Apple built a third-party AI system for Siri but did not show it at WWDC, and the company has been slower than Google, Amazon, and Meta in deploying conversational AI to consumer-facing products. A shopping assistant in the Store app is a low-risk entry point: the conversation is about products Apple already sells, the data is first-party, and the stakes of a wrong answer are a mismatched iPhone case rather than a medical misdiagnosis.
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The privacy language is worth noting. “Where enabled, location data” and sharing with unnamed “partners” after removing identifiers is standard for Apple but more permissive than users might expect from a company that markets itself on privacy. A German court ruled Google liable for the content of its AI-generated responses, and any AI shopping assistant that recommends the wrong product or misquotes a spec could face similar scrutiny. Apple has not announced a launch date.
