There’s a lot to happen during next week’s WWDC 2024 keynote. The stakes of the presentation are much higher than your standard post-event market moves. The pressure on Tim Cook and his team to deliver the goods is, in a very real sense, even greater than in the run-up to last year’s Vision Pro announcement.
Apple will outline its AI plans on Monday. The topic has been a big question mark over Cupertino in recent years, as competitors like Google and Microsoft have embraced generative AI. There is broad industry consensus that systems powered by major language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini will have a profound impact on the way we interact with our devices.
Apple is expected to announce a partnership with OpenAI, which will bring the company’s smart features to the iPhone and Mac. Apple’s short-term strategy is deep integration between existing properties and generative AI, with Siri at the center. Since its debut in 2011, Apple has strived to make the voice assistant an integral part of all its operating systems.
In the intervening thirteen years, however, Siri has failed to deliver the revolution that Apple promised. There are many reasons for this, but the most important is power. The concept of an artificial voice assistant predates Siri by decades, but no one has completely cracked it for a reason. As phone makers and app developers have transformed smartphones into all-devices, the tasks of these assistants have become increasingly complex.
As impressive as the work of the Stanford Research Institute was, the technology needed for a frictionless experience simply wasn’t ready yet. Siri co-founder Norman Winarsky discussed the underlying problem in 2018, noting that Apple’s original plan was for a much more limited assistant that handled things like entertainment and travel. “These are tough problems, and when you’re a company that deals with up to a billion people, the problems become even tougher,” Winarsky noted at the time. “They are probably looking for a level of perfection that they cannot achieve.”
Generative AI isn’t at that level of perfection either – not yet, at least. Hallucinations are still a problem. That’s exactly why, even after the huge buzz of the last few years, it still feels like we’re in the baby steps phase. If anything, I’d say Google has been overly aggressive in some places. The best example of this is the company’s decision to display Gemini results at the top of search results.
When something is prioritized over trusted sources in the world’s dominant search engine, it should do things as best as humanly possible, not, you know, tell people to eat glue. Google bills Gemini as a product of its “Search Labs,” but a majority of users undoubtedly don’t understand what that means in terms of product maturity, nor can they be bothered to click through for more information.
In recent years I have met several researchers who have used the term “magic” to describe the results of the “black box” surrounding large language models. This isn’t a setback for all the great work happening in space, but rather a realization that there’s still so much we don’t know about the technology.
Arthur C. Clarke said it best: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
One place Google has been more intentional, however, is in integrating Gemini into Android. Rather than completely replace Assistant, Google has integrated its generative AI platform into several applications. Users can also choose to set Gemini as the default by assigning it to the Assistant button on Pixel devices. This implementation, at least so far, requires deliberate action on the part of the user.
While Gemini hasn’t completely conquered Android yet, Google is clearly signaling that there will come a day in the not-too-distant future when it will completely replace Assistant. I half expected an announcement along these lines at I/O last month, though I’m glad the decision was ultimately made to give Gemini more time to bake.
Whether the Assistant name sticks is ultimately a branding decision. Apple, in turn, is very attached to the name Siri. After all, it spent well over a decade pitching the product to consumers. Sooner or later, however, generative AI will eat up the smart assistant space.
Voice assistants in general are having an existential moment. Smart speakers have a broader benchmark across platforms like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. Shipments have declined, following warming during the pandemic. It’s unfair to label the category as doomed, but that will be the case in the long run without the right shot in the arm.
Generative AI is poised to become the logical successor, but the first wave of hardware devices built around these models, including the Humane Ai Pin and Rabbit R1, are just a testament to how far the category has to go before it can be seen as a consistent are considered. experience for regular users.
Apple will finally show its hand on Monday. While rumors suggest the company is shifting some employees to generative AI activities following the electric car implosion, all signs point to Apple having ceded a significant competitive edge. As such, the most logical play is a partnership with a reigning powerhouse like OpenAI.
Shortly after the Siri acquisition was announced, Steve Jobs was asked if the company was trying to beat Google at its own game. “It’s an AI company,” Jobs noted. “We are not going into the search business. We do not care. Other people are doing well.”
The company’s approach to generative AI is currently in the same place. At this stage, Apple can’t beat OpenAI at its own game, so it’s going to work together. But even the best of the current models still have a long way to go before they’re ready to completely replace the current crop of smart assistants.