How can I stop Siri listening to me on iPhone with AirPods?

I’m using an iPhone 16 Pro Max and the latest generation AirPods Pro. Since upgrading from an iPhone 14 Pro Max and Gen 3 AirPods, Siri now offers to reply to messages when reading my notifications, which I do not want.

Since February 2022, I’ve relied on AirPods and Siri solely to read notifications. I never use voice commands for Siri and don’t want to. However, now, when I’m speaking to someone and a notification is read, Siri sometimes sends a reply based on my conversation—something I never experienced before. This has made me feel like I need to remove my AirPods every time I interact with someone, defeating their purpose - no matter what I’m doing I want to hear my notifications so I know if I need to stop what I’m doing and address urgent messages.

I find this feature to now be invasive, as I’m concerned about the microphone being active all the time. I don’t want Siri to accept voice commands ever. But I must opt in to that to have it read to me? Seems dirty.

I have spent over an hour with Apple Support, adjusting all the settings for iPhone and AirPods, I’ve run the diagnostics (device came back as having no hardware issue), I’ve updated, I’ve prayed, but nothing has resolved the issue.

The last support tech has escalated this to engineering, but I’m not hopeful.

It’s also frustrating that there’s no way to see a log of Siri's actions. I feel like I’m constantly at risk of accidentally sending messages without my consent, which is particularly alarming in sensitive conversations. The only way I would know is by going through the notifications and checking if any reply was sent.

I desperately want to stop Siri from offering to reply to notifications while still having them read aloud. If I can’t achieve this, I may have to stop using Siri altogether, which I rely on for staying aware of urgent messages, and is the purpose of me using the iPhone and AirPods. These latest versions are incompatible with my lifestyle and there is nothing I can do. I couldn’t have known this was the new normal before purchasing the device. There’s no warranty because the device is “fine” and “performing as it should” but this new performance is a severe downgrade in user experience for me.

I apologise if this has come across poorly, I truly am stressed about this and I don’t know what to do next.

I’ve got a $3000 paperweight which is also at times an active landmine around privileged conversations.

Help :(

[Re-Titled By Moderator]