Following the comparatively triumphant debut of Siri AI this summer, Apple is preparing to use AI to power something even more important: shopping.
As spotted by MacRumors, the privacy policy for the Apple Store app reveals the existence of a new “virtual shopping assistant.” Such a tool is not yet available in any public-facing capacity, but the text strongly suggests it will imminently be offered in certain regions as part of the Apple Store app.
The policy naturally focuses on the privacy elements of the assistant rather than its functionality. Here’s what we know so far:
“Where the Apple Store app virtual shopping assistant is available, 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. Before sharing the chat with our partners, Apple scrubs personal identifiers from it. These partners will use this information only to help Apple to provide a conversational response. 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.”
From that we can deduce that Apple will likely use third-party AI to power the tool: hence the references to “partners” and the necessity to share chats with them “to help Apple to provide a conversational response.” What isn’t clear is what the assistant will do to, well, assist.
Given that it has access to the customer’s account, device, and carrier information, the assistant would be capable of offering advice about which Apple products would be compatible with their existing setup, and potentially about which would be most suitable for their needs. It would also have access to more general advice given to all customers. Whether this latter advice would be designed to benefit the customer or the company is more open to interpretation.
In a Reddit thread discussing MacRumors’ article, while some commenters think the assistant may be useful for older and/or less tech-savvy customers, others are skeptical about its impartiality and ability to give unbiased advice; one suggests its purpose may be “to walk you toward AppleCare and a trade-in on the way out.” It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that human employees at bricks-and-mortar Apple Stores already have the same incentive to upsell and far more ability to do so, yet have historically tended not to be too pushy. A bigger worry may be the potential for hallucinations and bad advice, which Apple will need to anticipate with human oversight.
Regardless of such concerns, the Cupertino AI bandwagon shows no sign of slowing down. Apple is also planning to use AI to transcribe Genius Bar sessions, and for a chatbot used by retail partners.
