Apple enters the AI race – but not everyone is happy

Will Apple Intelligence help the company shift more iPhones?

Apple CEO, Tim Cook announced a series of GenAI augmented products and services yesterday during his keynote speech at WWDC, including Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence has been powered by a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into Apple digital assistant Siri.

The goal? A highly personalised and automated user experience.

"AI has to understand you and be grounded in your personal context like your routine, your relationships, your communications and more. It's beyond artificial intelligence. It's personal intelligence," said Cook. "Introducing… Apple Intelligence."

Apple Intelligence isn't a product in it's own right. It's rather like Microsoft Copilot in the sense that it will be integrated into multiple applications and functions.

In addition to allowing Siri to access ChatGPT's vast repository of knowledge (a gateway that will be optional for users) , Apple is giving Siri a glow up to try and make the digital assistant more personable.

Siri's ChatGPT tie in will be free to all iPhone users and made available on other Apple products as the option is slowly integrated into the next generation of Apple's operating systems. For the moment, the newly announced features will only work on more recent Apple device models because the most advanced processors will be necessary.

However, if you're a ChatGPT subscriber with a recent iPhone you should be able to sync your existing account when using your iPhone, and should get more advanced features.

Among a host of product announcmenets Apple announced new Writing Tools which will be built into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. The suite of tools will contain options such as Rewrite, which will allow users to finesse the tone of what they have just written, better targeting it to the relevant audience.

During Cook's announcement and in a subsequent statement, the challenge of combining AI, which by definition needs a lot of personal data before it can be useful to an individual, with Apple's valuable reputation for privacy and security was acknowledged.

Lots of the processing will take place on devices themselves, and when more processing power is necessary for more complex requests, Private Cloud Compute will kick in. The silicon is wholly owned by Apple. Furthermore:

"Private Cloud Compute cryptographically ensures that iPhone, iPad, and Mac do not talk to a server unless its software has been publicly logged for inspection."

Not everyone was convinced though.

The new tools mark a big strategic shift for Apple which has been seen to have fallen behind companies like Microsoft and Google when it comes to AI development and integration. The company has also seen global sales, particularly of iPhones, slow over the last year.