Your phone’s built-in AI watches how you use it (which apps you open and when, where you go, what you type, who you message) so it can suggest the next app, shortcut, reply or route. On iPhone and on recent Android phones, most of that learning happens on the device. The features that send data off the phone are usually the newer generative ones: some Apple Intelligence requests, Gemini, and a number of Galaxy AI tools. You can switch off the parts you don’t want without breaking the phone.
Here’s what’s being learned, where it’s processed, and the settings that control it.
What does your phone’s AI learn about you? #
| What it learns | What it’s used for | Usually processed |
|---|---|---|
| Which apps you open, and when | App suggestions, preloading, battery management | On device |
| Places you visit often | Commute alerts, location-based suggestions | On device |
| How you type | Keyboard predictions and autocorrect | On device |
| Faces and objects in photos | Photo search and albums | On device |
| Your messages and notifications | Smart replies, notification summaries | Mixed: on device or cloud, depending on the feature |
| What you ask the assistant | Answers, and model improvement if you allow it | Mixed |
Researchers have shown that smartphone usage data can reveal a surprising amount, including hints about personality and routines. Keeping that learning on the device, and limiting what’s shared, is what the settings below are for.
On-device, cloud and hybrid prediction #
Phone makers use three approaches:
- On-device. Learning and prediction happen on the phone. Fast, works offline, and nothing is uploaded. The trade-off is that the phone only learns from your own behavior.
- Cloud. Data goes to the company’s servers, where bigger models can use patterns from many users. More powerful, less private.
- Hybrid. Simple predictions on the device, harder requests in the cloud. Apple’s Private Cloud Compute and Galaxy AI’s mix of local and server features work this way.
iPhone: settings to review #
- Apple Intelligence. Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri. You can turn Apple Intelligence off entirely, or leave it on and turn off the ChatGPT extension so nothing is handed to OpenAI. Apple runs a model of roughly 3 billion parameters on the phone and sends larger requests to its Private Cloud Compute servers (Apple Machine Learning Research).
- Per-app suggestions. In the Apple Intelligence & Siri settings, choose an app and turn off Learn from this App to stop iOS using how you use it for suggestions.
- Significant Locations. Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → System Services → Significant Locations. You can clear the history or turn it off.
- Analytics. Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements. Turn off sharing iPhone analytics and Improve Siri & Dictation.
- Personalized ads. Settings → Privacy & Security → Apple Advertising.
- App Privacy Report. Settings → Privacy & Security → App Privacy Report shows which apps accessed your location, camera, microphone and contacts, and which domains they contacted.
Pixel and other Android phones: settings to review #
- Gemini. In Gemini Apps Activity, turn off Keep Activity if you don’t want chats saved to your account or used to improve Google’s models. Google still keeps chats for up to 72 hours (Gemini Apps Privacy Hub).
- On-device intelligence. Android keeps many predictive features (Smart Reply, Live Caption, Now Playing) in a protected, on-device part of the system that Google calls Private Compute Core. These don’t need changing for privacy, but you can turn individual features off in Settings if you don’t use them.
- Location Timeline. Google Maps Timeline is now stored on your device rather than in your Google account for most people. Check Maps → your profile → Your Timeline to see its settings and delete history.
- Web & App Activity. In your Google Account’s Data & privacy page, decide whether Google saves activity from Search and other services.
- Advertising ID. Settings → Privacy → Ads → Delete advertising ID.
Menu names vary by manufacturer and Android version. Searching Settings for the feature name is usually quickest.
Samsung Galaxy: settings to review #
Galaxy AI combines features that run on the phone with features that use Samsung’s or Google’s servers. Samsung includes a setting in its Galaxy AI (or Advanced intelligence) menu to process data only on the device. Turning it on keeps your data local, and features that need the cloud stop working. Check each feature’s description to see which ones those are.
Which features are worth keeping? #
Most on-device prediction is harmless and genuinely useful: keyboard suggestions, photo search and battery optimization learn only from you and never leave the phone. The ones worth scrutinizing are:
- Anything that sends your messages, emails or documents to a server to summarize or rewrite them
- Assistants that save conversations to your account
- Features that share data with a third-party AI company
A simple test for any feature: turn on airplane mode and try it. If it still works, it’s running on the device.
A private AI that doesn’t learn your habits #
Built-in phone AI predicts things for you. A local chat app does something different: it answers what you ask and forgets nothing only because you keep the chat, not because it’s building a profile.
Personal LLM runs open models such as Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4 entirely on your phone. It has no account, no cloud sync and no analytics on your conversations, and its usage stats stay on the device. The model file never changes based on what you say, so nothing you tell it is being learned into a profile. It works in airplane mode once a model is downloaded. For how on-device models compare with the cloud, see on-device AI vs cloud AI, and for the voice side of your phone’s assistant, see voice assistant privacy settings.
Frequently asked questions #
Does my phone’s AI track what I do? #
It learns from how you use the phone, such as which apps you open, places you visit and how you type, to make suggestions. On iPhone and recent Android phones, most of this learning stays on the device. Features that use the cloud, such as some assistant and generative AI requests, are the ones to check.
How do I turn off Apple Intelligence? #
Go to Settings → Apple Intelligence & Siri and switch Apple Intelligence off. You can also leave it on and just disable the ChatGPT extension, or turn off Learn from this App for individual apps.
Is Galaxy AI processed on the device? #
Some Galaxy AI features run on the phone and others use cloud servers. Samsung includes a setting to process data only on the device, which keeps your data local but disables the cloud-dependent features.
Is on-device AI more private than cloud AI? #
Yes, because the data it learns from never leaves your phone. It can still be seen by anyone who gets into your phone, so a strong passcode matters as much as the AI settings.