Tim Cook: 'We Don't Buy' the Need to Give Up Privacy for AI

iOS-9-SiriDuring today's fourth quarter 2016 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about Siri, artificial intelligence, home assistants vs. mobile assistants, and balancing AI with security, which led to some interesting new insights into Siri's popularity and Apple's privacy stance.

According to Cook, Apple is now getting more than 2 billion Siri requests per week. "It's very large," he said, "and to the best of our knowledge, we've shipped more assistant enabled devices than anyone out there." He went on to highlight Apple's efforts to deliver a great Siri experience around the world. While most AI services are limited to the United States, Siri is available in many countries. "We put a lot of energy into that," Cook said.

Cook also said that he believes there's more value in having a phone with a personal assistant built in, like Siri, than a home device. "We live in a mobile society," he said. "People are constantly moving from home to work and to other things they may be doing. And so the advantage of having an assistant on your phone is that it's with you all the time." He went on to say that there's still a market for a home assistant like the Amazon Echo, but that usage on a phone "will likely be much greater."

On security, Cook said that Apple does not believe there's a need to compromise security for the sake of artificial intelligence.

In terms of the balance of privacy and AI, this is a long conversation, but at a high level, this is a false tradeoff. People would like you to believe you have to give up privacy to have AI do something for you, but we don't buy that. It might take more work, it might take more thinking, but I don't think we should throw our privacy away. It's sort of like the age old argument between privacy and security. You should have both. You shouldn't have to make a choice.

In the past, rumors have suggested that Apple's staunch dedication to privacy has held back the development of Siri. Apple is said to employ "policy czars" that make sure Apple services are not collecting customer data, something that has restricted the way Siri can be used.

Apple has, however, made some important steps forward with Siri in recent years through the use of machine learning and a neural network, advancements Cook highlighted earlier in the call. Just this year, Apple was able to open up Siri to third-party developers, and the company is said to be hard at work on some major improvements that will allow Siri to do more and to be built into products like a rumored Echo-like smart home device.

Popular Stories

iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iOS 26 Screens

Here Are All the iOS 26 Features That Require iPhone 15 Pro or Newer

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:53 am PDT by
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence. The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
CarPlay Liquid Glass Dark

Apple to Let iPhone Users Watch Videos on CarPlay Screen While Parked

Thursday June 12, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles. iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Hate iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design? Here's How to Tone It Down

Wednesday June 11, 2025 4:22 pm PDT by
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look. Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
Mac Studio Feature

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished Mac Studio With M4 Max and M3 Ultra Chips at a Discount

Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March. As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...
maxresdefault

Everything Apple Announced at WWDC 2025 in 10 Minutes

Monday June 9, 2025 5:21 pm PDT by
At today's WWDC 2025 keynote event, Apple unveiled a new design that will inform the next decade of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS development, so needless to say, it was a busy day. Apple also unveiled a ton of new features for the iPhone, an overhauled Spotlight interface for the Mac, and a ton of updates that make the iPad more like a Mac than ever before. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel ...

Top Rated Comments

enriquesh96 Avatar
113 months ago
Privacy is one of the reasons i stick with apple.
Score: 48 Votes (Like | Disagree)
keysofanxiety Avatar
113 months ago
More mullarkey from Tim. Apple's privacy stance is precisely what's been holding Siri back from being useful in any meaningful way. I get far more accurate results with Google Now/Assistant & Amazon's Alexa than I ever have using Siri. At this point Siri is more of a hindrance than a useful tool.
Good. If that's the tradeoff, I'll take inherent privacy over a few more features when I choose to talk to my phone. Any day of the week.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
VMMan Avatar
113 months ago
Tim is right -- this time.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jerry16 Avatar
113 months ago
Siri is far from perfect, but I applaud Apple's hard line stance on privacy.

Keep it up Apple and I will keep spending my money with you. I believe privacy takes precedence over Siri and that in time, any trade offs being made between the two will be worked out.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Derekuda Avatar
113 months ago
LOL. Sure Tim! Siri is trash!

By the way, I would just like to point out how people get uptight about privacy, but then 5 minutes later post their entire life to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, etc.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kerrikins Avatar
113 months ago
More mullarkey from Tim. Apple's privacy stance is precisely what's been holding Siri back from being useful in any meaningful way. I get far more accurate results with Google Now/Assistant & Amazon's Alexa than I ever have using Siri. At this point Siri is more of a hindrance than a useful tool.
And customers like me thank him for it and stick with Apple because of it because we value our privacy more than a digital assistant.


They don't want to give up your privacy yet THEY receive 2 billion Siri requests every week!!

Nope, the only way for his statement to be true is for Apple to not receive a damn thing from you. And Siri will always be poorer too then it's competition. I would appreciate it relinquishing privacy for better services and more accuracy.

At this point Apples stupid comments about 'privacy' are nothing more then advertising soundbite gimmicks.
Google uses things like all the search and email data that they have, prior requests, contacts, basically everything that they can possibly pull and links it together (albeit 'anonymized') to provide the results they do. Apple doesn't do that. Maybe you're okay with blithely handing over everything about you for the profits of Google's coffers, but some of us aren't and I appreciate Apple being willing to give those of us in that camp an option. If they didn't then we'd have no options at all.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)