Apple Intelligence’ sees ChatGPT integrated with Siri by Apple

Apple has shifted its focus, as seen by the new capabilities it unveiled at a recent conference and its partnership with OpenAI. This action is a result of growing pressure on Apple to stay up with rivals’ AI developments

CEO Tim Cook announced a number of generative artificial intelligence services and products, such as “Apple Intelligence” and a collaboration with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, during his keynote address at Apple’s annual developer conference, WWDC.

With the release of these new tools, Apple has made a major shift in its approach to artificial intelligence in reaction to its dropping global sales over the previous year and its competitive disadvantage in terms of incorporating AI features into consumer goods.

Cook said, “AI has to understand your unique context—your relationships, routines, conversations, and everything else. It is personal intelligence, which goes beyond artificial intelligence.” Afterwards, he presented “Apple Intelligence.”

A range of generative AI tools are included in Apple’s most recent AI system, which is intended to provide an automated, customised experience across all of its devices. The demonstration showed how the AI technology of the corporation will be easily included into the operating systems of its iPhones, iPad tablets, and Mac laptops, allowing it to communicate with and obtain data from apps.

At the keynote, Apple announced the incorporation of ChatGPT technology into the responses provided by an enhanced Siri, confirming the much-awaited relationship with OpenAI. A more personalised, contextually relevant, and natural experience was what executives promised. The upgraded Siri will operate as an artificial intelligence chatbot that can take written orders and respond to voice commands to perform tasks within apps. Apple promised that Siri would be able to look for specific information based on pertinent context by searching through emails, texts, and photographs.

An Apple representative demonstrated how the AI can recognise the word “daughter” in an email and associate it with the relevant phone number. Notifications, emails, and messages can also be summarised by Apple Intelligence. As an example, a group chat about trip planning may be distilled into a single message that states who booked a hotel and when they will arrive. Furthermore, users may now generate original emoji replies with a new picture production tool, and more complex images in a variety of styles can be created with the new picture Playground feature.

The business also unveiled the Vision Pro headset’s updated operating system. This virtual reality gadget, which debuted in the US in February, will be available in China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, France, and the UK in the next two months.

Along with further customisation choices for iMessage, Apple announced the introduction of Rich Communication Services (RCS) to improve communications between iPhones and other handsets. This messaging protocol has been used for a long time by Google’s Android operating system. A revamped Photos app, trekking maps in Apple Maps, tweaks to the Wallet app, texting customisation capabilities, and satellite texting in places without cell tower coverage were among the other minor upgrades from WWDC.

Is Apple Intelligence a revolutionary technology or a belated entry?

Remarkable IT giants like Google have redesigned their key services to use generative AI as its popularity has grown. But up until today, Apple had avoided incorporating generative AI into its marquee devices. Over the past year, analysts and investors have expressed concern over Apple’s lack of generative AI tools on a regular basis, casting doubt on the company’s competitive standing in the AI space.

Apple began looking into collaborations and updating products like Siri, its voice assistant that was released in 2011, as the company’s need for a new AI solution grew. After Cook gave investors assurances last month over Apple’s significant AI expenditures, Bloomberg revealed that the business was close to finalising an agreement with OpenAI to integrate the startup’s technology into its products.

Due to investors’ anticipation of Apple’s impending announcements, the company’s stock has increased recently. Nonetheless, the business has encountered difficulties this year, such as a decline in the demand for its iPhone throughout the world, as seen by a further decline in revenue disclosed on an earnings call last month. Apple has also been burdened by its involvement in a US antitrust litigation, the cancellation of an electric car project, and the lack of public attention surrounding its expensive Vision Pro headset.

By putting artificial intelligence efforts first, other IT businesses have seen a rise in their stock market worth in the interim. Apple’s rival Microsoft outperformed projections this year, posting gains in both sales and share price. Furthermore, this week saw the AI chipmaker Nvidia surpass Apple to become the second most valuable public corporation in the world with a $3 trillion stock market valuation.

Apple has been steadily increasing its investments in and capabilities related to artificial intelligence over the years, despite its reluctance to introduce a flagship AI product. It has taken over a number of AI businesses, reallocated staff members to concentrate on AI, and is setting up an AI research facility in Zurich.

Apple’s resolute determination to uphold its reputation as a privacy-focused company may have motivated its cautious approach to entering the AI space. Because AI primarily relies on obtaining large amounts of data for language model training, privacy issues have been raised by Apple’s collaboration with OpenAI. Elon Musk, among other detractors, has expressed concerns about privacy, threatening to “banned” Apple devices from his companies’ premises if the ChatGPT interface is implemented.

But Cook told reporters at a post-event news conference that Apple plans to create a “new standard for privacy in AI.” On the same day as the keynote, he said, the corporation will release a document detailing its ambitions to “apply this technology in a responsible way.” Apple officials emphasised the precautions taken to protect users’ privacy when utilising the company’s AI during the previous demonstration. These precautions included the usage of dedicated servers to power functionality without keeping personal information or on-device responses.