AI assistant with memory: AI personal assistant with memory for iPhone

On the Plus or Pro plan, yes. You can say "remember that I am allergic to shellfish" and it will take that into account the next time it looks for a restaurant. Everything it remembers sits on one screen where you can search it, edit it, delete entries one by one or delete the lot. And if you say a password out loud, Nia does not save it: it works out that it is a credential, writes nothing and asks you what to do.

No. The wake word "Hey Nia" is switched on by hand in Settings, with its battery warning, and it only works with the app open or with background audio mode on. With the app closed, Nia does not listen, and that is not a fault: iOS does not allow it to any app other than Siri. While it is listening, the orange microphone indicator is on, as it should be.

When your iPhone supports your language offline, dictation stays on the phone; when it does not, Apple transcribes it on its servers, as with keyboard dictation. The wake word is only ever detected on the iPhone. Of what you say to Nia, the audio does not reach its server: the text does, so the model can understand it. There are three cases in which audio does leave the phone. Group radio: when you turn it on and hold to speak, the voice notice goes through the server to reach the people in that group who turned their listening on; it lives in memory for about thirty seconds, and if someone reports it, it is kept for thirty days. Telling apart the voices in a meeting you record: that audio goes through Nia's server to the Google model that works out who is speaking. And an audio file you attach in the chat: it travels with your message to the model, so it can listen to it. Reading a receipt, translating text, Nia Studio masks and your location also stay on the phone, with location rounded to a kilometre before it leaves.

Yes, and without writing to anyone. At the bottom of Settings, "Delete account" deletes everything Nia keeps for you: what it remembers, your conversations, your errands, your saved voices, your documents and your place in every group. Before that, if you want, on Plus or Pro you can export all of it in one file from Settings, under Memory, with "Export my data"; on the free plan, ask for a copy at help@niapersonal.com.

A voice notice is only sent when you turn radio on and hold to speak. There are no public channels and nobody can turn listening on for you. A notice lives in memory for about thirty seconds so it can reach people who chose to listen. If someone reports it, it is kept for thirty days so it can be reviewed. There is no end to end encryption and Nia does not identify anyone by their voice.

On the phone, and only when it is needed for what you asked: working out who you are calling or who you are writing to. Your address book is not uploaded to any server, not even to find out which of your contacts use Nia; what does travel to the model is the name and number of the contact you pick, to prepare the message. A group invitation is a code that works once, and Nia writes it for you in WhatsApp or Messages.