A long time has gone by since Apple announced several new AI-based features at its WWDC developer conference on Monday, as well as partnering with an upstart in generative artificial intelligence called OpenAI to create generative AI. Even though Apple is very clearly stating its commitment to practicality, personalization, and privacy with its new technology, there is also a clear focus on the practicality, personalization, and privacy aspects that are important to Apple.
However, many of the features announced play to Apple’s strengths rather than being cutting-edge. Apple has recently announced several artificial intelligence features, some of which are a bit predictable. There is a nice bit of pride in being able to access writing assistance tools from numerous places within the operating system and to have AI generate unique emojis for users, but this is not a radical step forward in productivity for users. Using a variety of (anonymized) information and apps, Apple is giving their models access to a greater amount of information and apps of the user to make personal AI more valuable.
According to Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart, the writing assistance stuff and image generation stuff are just table stakes. For instance, Siri, powered by artificial intelligence, is capable of accessing and orchestrating multiple apps at the same time. The users might ask Siri, “When is Mom's flight landing?” Siri can look up the flight details (in Messages or email apps) and cross-reference them with real-time flight tracking information so that he or she can provide a real-time arrival time for Mom. Alternatively, users can ask Siri to send them a few photos from a particular event via Messages, but this is restricted to iOS apps, of course.
According to Greengart, Apple will offer app developers a new App Intents API, which will allow Siri to access certain app functions and access app data. However, this will only be possible with Apple apps. In my opinion, Apple is making a smart move by allowing Siri access to more apps and information. It has been estimated that more than 2.2 billion active Apple devices around the world store a variety of information, and Apple is in the unique position to turn this data into something useful by combining it with artificial intelligence.
With the ability to reach across devices, Apple's artificial intelligence, or "Apple Intelligence," as it is called, can have access to a fuller set of information about users. And that is the area where Apple's longstanding commitment to data privacy could prove very useful.
Apple has an excellent track record on privacy protection, and customers who have purchased services from Apple are likely to trust Apple to protect their data, whereas customers of other AI companies may be less confident that AI systems will not leak their data or use it for unauthorized purposes.
The SVP of Software Engineering at Apple, Craig Federighi, explained in a keynote speech that people should not have to hand over everything about their lives to someone else's artificial intelligence cloud to be warehoused and analyzed by them. As part of its commitment, Apple has committed to designing mobile chips that are powerful enough to run AI models efficiently, which represents another of its core strengths. There is a lot of computing power required by language models as well as image models, and they are usually run on cloud-based servers to meet these requirements.
Tim Bajarin, the principal analyst at Creative Strategies, says Apple has been spending so much time and money improving the performance of its M-series chips - and also making them smaller and more efficient - that it is now possible to run small AI models on the devices, thanks to the hard work and expertise of Apple. The new AI features are still not available for existing Apple users, Bajarin notes, as they will require upgrading to an iPhone with an M-class processor to access them.
This suggests that the AI that is included in iPhones might simply be a powerful incentive for people to decide to upgrade. It would be no surprise to see Wall Street rushing to welcome the launch of a new iPhone "supercycle". However, analysts had a different interpretation of Apple's announcement than they thought. As a result of the keynote, Apple stock plummeted more than 2% in late afternoon trading, to close down more than 2% from its high in the morning.
The situation could undergo a significant transformation if Apple device users begin to establish a personal connection with the newly introduced AI features. On Monday, Apple CEO Tim Cook emphasized that these advancements transcend traditional artificial intelligence. He described it as "personal intelligence," indicating that this represents a substantial and pivotal progression for Apple.