Here’s how you can tell when Apple Intelligence used the cloud for your request

For better or worse, one of the tentpole features of Apple Intelligence is its preference for on-device processing.

This means Apple Intelligence requests and features are handled and executed by your device as much as possible. However, this is not always possible because some requests are too complex for the processor on your iPhone or even your Mac to handle. They require models that need more computational power to run and therefore these requests need to be sent to the cloud.

For these online requests, Apple has created something called Private Cloud Compute. In a nutshell, it refers to the method that Apple uses to send your requests to its specially-built secure servers. To ensure privacy, these servers run a stripped core with no remote shell capability so that neither Apple nor hackers can slip in new code. Furthermore, all data sent to these servers are encrypted and no data is ever stored on these servers—all data is deleted after the request is fulfilled.

All of this happens in the background. That is to say, when you use Apple Intelligence, there is no visual indication to tell you when requests are processed on-device and when they might be sent to the cloud. But for those who are concerned, there is a way to tell when your request was sent to Private Cloud Compute.

In the Settings app, there is a way to generate an Apple Intelligence Report that shows all the times that your request was sent to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute.

To generate this report, follow these steps:

• Go to the Settings app
• Scroll down to “Privacy & Security”
• Then scroll down to “Apple Intelligence Report”
• Then “Export Activity”

The report duration is set to 15 minutes by default, but you can also set it to the last seven days if you wish. Or you could turn it off completely.

The report is saved as a JSON file, which most text editors can open.