Nearly two years after OpenAI launched a race to add generative artificial intelligence to its products, Apple jumped into the competition on Monday, with plans to bring the technology to more than one billion iPhone users around the world.
At the start of a two-hour presentation from its futuristic Silicon Valley campus, Apple revealed that it would use generative AI to power what it calls Apple Intelligence. The system will prioritize messages and notifications and offer writing tools capable of correcting and suggesting what users have written in emails, notes or text. It will also result in a major update to Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant.
When introducing its new AI features, Apple emphasized how it planned to integrate the technology into its products with privacy in mind.
The company said the technology, which can answer questions, create images and write software code, would perform sensitive tasks such as determining whether a rescheduled meeting would complicate plans to attend a children’s theater performance on the iPhone instead of in data centers. where personal information is stored. would be at higher risk of being compromised. For complex requests, it has created a cloud network with Apple semiconductors that it said is more private because it is not stored or accessible, not even by Apple.
“As we look to incorporate these incredible new capabilities, we want to be sure the result reflects the core principles of our products,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “It has to be powerful enough to help with the things that matter most to you. It has to be intuitive and easy to do.”
Apple also said it would make improvements to its iPhone software system. This fall, Messaging will add the ability to schedule messages and respond to them by tapping with more emojis. Apple will also launch a redesigned Photos app to make it easier to search for images by topics like pets and travel. And he said iPhone users could send high-resolution images to Android smartphones.
Apple brings several strengths to the AI race. Its semiconductor development team is among the most talented in the industry, and the team has been making chips that power complex AI functions for years. The company also promotes itself as better than its rivals at protecting people’s personal information because it makes money by selling devices, not advertising.
But Apple has several weaknesses that could hold back its AI development. The secretive company has had difficulty recruiting and retaining top AI researchers because it limits the amount of research it publishes. It has also tried to license published material and has opposed collecting it without permission, as other generative AI companies have done to build and train their technology.
To overcome its shortcomings, Apple struck a deal with OpenAI to provide some generative AI technology as support, two people familiar with the deal said. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attended the Apple event.
Although Siri has been around for more than a decade, Apple has let the voice assistant languish. The assistant has frustrated users by not recognizing various requests, and its ability to chat is limited because it is programmed to follow each individual command.
Generative AI could improve Siri because it has been trained on spoken conversations drawn from podcasts and videos. The result is a system that can mimic the way people speak.
Apple said Siri would be able to remember the context of something a user has asked it. For example, if someone asks about the weather at Muir Woods National Monument and then asks to schedule a hike there, Siri will now know that the hike you’re scheduling is in Muir Woods.
Siri will also understand more of the things people want to do in iPhone apps. For example, users can ask it to show a photo of a friend and it will find and show those images to people in the Photos app. You’ll also be able to perform tasks for people like finding an image of a user’s driver’s license and filling it out in a form.
Apple’s push toward generative AI was partly a response to Wall Street investors. The technology has lifted the values of Microsoft, a big player in generative AI, and Nvidia, which sells AI chips. Earlier this year, Microsoft dethroned Apple as the world’s most valuable technology company.
“This is the biggest event for investors since the iPhone because they have to infuse AI into their products to prosper,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, which invests in emerging technology companies. “Today was about showing that they will make AI a core competency and that they can deliver the AI experience that consumers want.”
The event marked an important milestone in Apple’s relationship with developers. Tensions have risen between the company and app makers over the past year as Apple has resisted new rules in Europe designed to loosen its grip on the App Store. The rules require Apple to allow third-party payment alternatives that could circumvent the 30 percent fee it charges on app sales. But Apple responded by introducing alternatives that would make that change prohibitively expensive.
Apple faces similar challenges in the United States. A federal judge in San Jose, California, is weighing whether the company can move forward with a plan to collect 27 percent of sales through alternative payment systems. And the Justice Department also sued Apple over rules that prevent other companies from offering cloud gaming apps, digital wallets and other alternatives on iPhones.
In this context, Apple sought to emphasize the benefits it offers to developers.
Apple said it would expand sales of Vision Pro, its mixed reality headset, beyond the United States to China, Japan and Europe later this month. The company also revealed new capabilities for the headset, including the ability to view old photos in three dimensions and create a giant virtual screen for a Mac.
