Is what pon suggests on the home screen AI?

No. What is on the suggestion cards is essentially maths: pon counts, measures the gaps between your purchases, works out averages and derives from that when something might be due again. When we talk about „learning“, that is exactly what we mean — not a machine that understands you, but a calculation that gets a little more accurate with every shopping trip.

And all of it happens solely on your device. Your purchases never leave your iPhone, are not uploaded and are not analyzed by us. There is no service in the background reading along.

What goes beyond this: for the shelf life of items you add yourself, pon asks Apple Intelligence when needed — Apple's own models, running on your iPhone. Nothing leaves the device there either.