Apple has officially begun rolling out new tools that allow users to use their Apple Watches as always-listening devices.
Apple first announced the Apple Watch Series 12 and its AI-infused Siri features at its fall hardware event, “Surprise and Shine,” back in September. Two key new features were unveiled under the moniker Audio Intelligence.
First there is Live Rewind, which allows Apple Watch owners to double press the Digital Crown to get a transcript of the last 15 seconds of any conversation in the watch’s vicinity. The second is called Siri Recap, and it relies on ambient listening throughout the day to create summaries for a user’s review.
Both features have been flagged by watchdogs as potentially illegal in some states due to the fact that people being discreetly recorded by these Apple Watches won’t be able to openly give consent. Apple seems aware of the potential ethical issue it has on its hands, as it has tried to circumvent it by promising strict omission of personal identifiers and other privacy protections, such as an audible chime and a visible animation on the screen when Live Rewind is activated.
Apple has introduced bespoke safety and privacy mechanisms for both new Audio Intelligence features. No names or locations are included in summaries created by these features; there are no speaker attributions; and no sensitive information such as banking account numbers is included. Siri Recap summaries are also stripped of emotion, inference, and tone to keep them as neutral as possible.
Apple stresses that both Live Rewind and Siri Recap are opt-in and never “recording.” Instead, audio is filtered, passed through the S11 chip’s Secure Exclave, and then processed by a paired iPhone’s Secure Enclave. No audio is saved on either device or in the cloud before, during, or after this process. It also can’t be accessed or recovered by anyone—even Apple.
Other AI-recording-enabled devices, most notably Meta’s smart glasses, which have been widely criticized and dubbed “pervert glasses” online, have also tried to add similar features to alert bystanders if they are being recorded, which were bypassed by doggedly determined users.
A full public rollout isn’t scheduled until December, but early reviews give a glimpse into how the features will work. Both features have to be manually enabled, and TechCrunch notes that any of the snippets you recover via Live Rewind can be saved as a note on the standalone Siri app. If you don’t save them via Siri, then the snippets are deleted after 30 seconds. The high-level notes and summaries that Siri Recaps compiles can also be saved on an iPhone, or they will be deleted within seven days.
The features are also currently unavailable in the European Union, a decision that Apple made months ago. The company is blaming strict EU tech regulations. “Apple is working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward,” Apple said in a release.
This article has been updated with additional context about Audio Intelligence’s privacy mechanisms.