Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a range of generative artificial intelligence products and services on Monday during his keynote speech at the company’s annual developer conference, WWDC, including a deal with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
The new tools mark a major shift toward AI for Apple, which has faced declining global sales over the past year and integrated fewer AI features into its consumer-facing products than competitors.
“It should be understood and based on your personal context, such as your routine, your relationships, your communication and more. It goes beyond artificial intelligence. It’s personal intelligence,” Cook said. “Introducing Apple Intelligence.”
Apple’s new artificial intelligence system includes a range of generative AI tools aimed at creating an automated, personalized experience on its devices. The demonstration showed that Apple’s AI would be integrated into the operating systems of its laptops, iPads and iPhones, and that it would be able to extract information from apps and take action within apps.
The company also confirmed its long-awaited partnership with OpenAI during the keynote and announced that Apple would integrate ChatGPT technology into the responses of Siri, its AI assistant.
One of Apple’s biggest updates was a new version of Siri, which executives promised would deliver a “more natural, contextually relevant and personalized” experience. The new Siri can function as an AI chatbot and receive written instructions, but also has the ability to take actions within apps based on voice prompts. Apple promised that Siri would be able to look through your emails, texts, and photos to find specific information based on relevant context. Apple demonstrated that its AI could, for example, extract the word “daughter” from an email and link it to the corresponding telephone contact. During the demonstration, executives highlighted the measures Apple had taken to protect user privacy when using the company’s AI, such as a dedicated set of servers that would power the features but not share users’ personal information or responses to the device would store.
Apple Intelligence also has the ability to summarize notifications, emails, and text messages. A group chat that involves figuring out travel plans can be shortened to a single message indicating who has booked a hotel and when to arrive, according to the demo. A new image generation tool lets users create unique emoji reactions, while the Image Playground feature can create more complex images in different styles.
The company also announced an updated operating system for its Vision Pro headset. The virtual reality device, which has only been available in the US since its release in February, will be available in China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, France and the UK over the next two months.
Apple said it would use Rich Communication Services to improve messaging between iPhones and other smartphones and expand customization options for iMessage. Phones running Google’s Android operating system have long used the messaging protocol. More incremental updates include a redesigned Photos app, walking maps in Apple Maps, tweaks to the Wallet app, customization options for texting, and satellite texting in locations without cell tower connections.
While the rise of generative AI in recent years has pushed tech giants like Google to revamp their core services, Apple has so far refrained from integrating the technology into its flagship products. The company’s lack of generative AI tools has been a constant source of consternation among analysts and investors over the past year, as they expressed concern that Apple appeared to be playing catch-up in the AI race.
As pressure grew on Apple to offer some form of new AI offering, the company began discussing partnerships and looking at ways to update tools like Siri, the voice assistant that debuted in 2011. After Cook promised shareholders last month that Apple was making “significant investments” in artificial intelligence, Bloomberg reported that the company was finalizing a deal with OpenAI to integrate the startup’s technology into its devices.
Apple shares have risen in recent months as investors waited to see what the company would unveil. Apple has struggled with weakening global demand for its iPhone this year, reporting another overall sales decline during an earnings call last month. An antitrust lawsuit in the US, a canceled electric vehicle project and a lack of public outcry over the expensive Vision Pro have also haunted the company.
Other tech companies, meanwhile, have seen their stock market values rise as they emphasize investment in artificial intelligence, with Apple’s rival Microsoft exceeding analyst expectations this year as its revenue and share price grew. AI chipmaker Nvidia reached a stock market valuation of $3 trillion last week, overtaking Apple to become the second most valuable publicly traded company in the world.
While Apple has been hesitant to launch a major AI product, the company has been quietly building its capabilities and investments in artificial intelligence for years. It has acquired several AI startups, redeployed employees to work on artificial intelligence and is setting up an AI research lab in Zurich.
Apple’s hesitation to join the AI game may have been influenced by its desire to maintain its privacy-focused brand. Because AI relies on collecting large amounts of data to train language learning models, the company’s partnership with OpenAI has raised privacy concerns among some critics, including Elon Musk, who declared Apple devices will be banned “from the premises” of its companies due to privacy concerns when the ChatGPT integration launches.
However, in a press conference after the event, Cook told reporters that Apple plans to usher in a “new standard for privacy in AI.” The company will publish a paper on the same day as the keynote highlighting how it will “apply this technology in a responsible manner,” he added.
In an onstage discussion, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said the company has built the majority of its “Apple intelligence” offerings with its own technology and its own fundamental models. In other words, the ChatGPT partnership mainly extends to search and improved writing tools, while the bulk of the AI tools are Apple’s own creation. Users must explicitly log in before they can use external AI models, such as those offered by OpenAI.
“For artificial intelligence to be really useful, it has to be focused on you,” says Federighi. “[To make] If possible, it should always be integrated into the experience – it should be informed by the context and knowledge of you. And if that does happen, there is a great responsibility to protect your privacy.”
Other privacy measures from Apple include a new hybrid cloud system called “private cloud compute.” The company said it aims to complete the majority of processing for AI tools on-device, but will provide additional privacy measures for more complex computers that require the cloud.
Despite these assurances, the pressure on Apple to deliver AI-powered services means the company has had to make some “difficult decisions” around its “long-held focus on privacy and security,” said Ben Wood, principal analyst and CMO at CCS Insight . .
“Implementing a cloud-based AI solution is a fascinating tension, with Apple coming to the same conclusion as competitors like Google: that it is not possible to fully implement current AI functions on devices, and that those elements must be outsourced to the cloud. ,” he said. “Apple will look to improve its security credentials, but this nevertheless marks a shift in approach.”