Apple Inc on Monday unveiled “Apple Intelligence,” its suite of new artificial intelligence (AI) features for its devices — and a partnership with OpenAI — as it seeks to catch up to rivals racing ahead on adopting the white-hot technology.
For months, pressure has been on Apple to persuade doubters of its AI strategy, after Microsoft Corp and Google rolled out products in quick succession.
However, this latest move would take the experience of Apple products “to new heights,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said as he opened the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the tech giant’s headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of Cupertino, California.
Photo: AFP
To help toward that end, Apple has partnered with OpenAI, which ushered in a new era for generative AI in 2022 with the arrival of ChatGPT.
OpenAI was “very happy to be partnering with Apple to integrate ChatGPT into their devices later this year! Think you will really like it,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on social media.
Apple Intelligence is also to be added to a new version of the iOS 18 operating system, similarly unveiled on Monday at the week-long conference.
Privacy safeguards have been built into Apple Intelligence to make its Siri digital assistant and other products smarter, without pilfering user data, Apple executives said.
The big challenge for Apple has been how to infuse ChatGPT-style AI — which voraciously feeds off data — into its products without weakening its heavily promoted user privacy and security, analysts said.
The system “puts powerful generative models right at the core of your iPhone, iPad and Mac,” Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said. “It draws on your personal context to give you intelligence that’s most helpful and relevant for you, and it protects your privacy at every step.”
However, tech tycoon Elon Musk lashed out at the partnership, saying the threat to data security would make him ban iPhones at his companies.
“Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river,” Musk wrote on social media.
Musk is building his own rival to OpenAI, xAI, and is suing the company, which he helped found in 2015.
Apple Intelligence, which runs only on the company’s in-house technology, would enable users to create their own emojis based on a description, or to generate brief summaries of e-mails in the mailbox.
Apple said Siri, its voice assistant, would also get an AI-infused upgrade and would appear as a pulsating light on the edge of the home screen.
In its deal with OpenAI, users can choose to enhance Siri on certain requests with ChatGPT, Federighi said.
“It sounds like it’s Apple — then if it needs ChatGPT, it offers it to you,” Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart said. “The implementation is what is special here.”
The partnership with OpenAI was not exclusive.
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