Apple Quietly Testing New AI Assistant Inside Apple Store App

Apple is quietly testing a new AI virtual shopping assistant inside its official Apple Store app, giving select iOS users an early preview of an automated assistant designed to simplify online buying, as spotted by MacRumors.

The tech giant has not formally announced the feature, opting instead to roll out an “early preview” to a limited group of shoppers. If your account is included in the test pool, opening the Apple Store app will display a small speech bubble icon featuring two sparkles sitting in the bottom-right corner of your screen.

Tapping this button launches an interactive chatbot ready to handle product inquiries, check existing orders, calculate device trade-in values, and break down complex financing options. Users can type out custom questions directly or pick from a list of common prompt topics displayed on the screen. The goal appears to be speeding up basic customer service workflows that previously required browsing support pages or starting a session with a human representative.

While Apple kept the feature launch under wraps, clear paper trails pointed to its arrival. A newly updated privacy policy on Apple’s official website confirmed that personal user data is being processed to personalize the shopping experience, deliver contextual answers, and train the virtual assistant if users choose to opt in.

Because this is an unannounced, phased rollout, vast numbers of shoppers will not see the sparkle icon in their app just yet. Large portions of the user base remain without access, which is standard practice when tech companies run small-scale, live testing environments to iron out bugs, fine-tune accuracy, and monitor server load.

By embedding this tool right into the Apple Store app, Apple can guide buyers through hardware configurations, check local store pickup availability, and streamline trade-ins without making shoppers jump through web pages.