Apple has quietly revealed plans for a new virtual shopping assistant in the Apple Store app, buried in updated privacy policy language. MacRumors first spotted the undocumented feature on July 22, suggesting Apple is testing the shopping assistant with select users before wider rollout. The virtual shopping assistant is an application providing a chatbot for user queries about Apple products, expected to offer customized recommendations based on device inventory, preferences, and purchasing behaviour. Apple's privacy policy indicates the feature uses account information, device identification information, carrier information, transcripts of chats, and information regarding location (if allowed). Apple's privacy disclosure states it will share information with "partners" to help "provide a conversational response," suggesting reliance on third-party large language models rather than solely its own AI models. Apple claims it "scrubs personal identifiers" from the transcripts before providing information to partners, keeping the conversation context intact along with device and shopping behaviour information. Apple also added a virtual assistant to its Apple Support app, though that feature has only rolled out to some users, with an "Ask" tab drawing from Apple documentation.