Apple is going all in on AI in the most Apple way possible. At WWDC, Apple’s annual conference for developers, the company revealed Apple Intelligence, an Apple-branded version of AI that is more focused on infusing its software with the technology and upgrading existing apps to make them more useful. Apple Intelligence will be powered both by Apple’s homegrown tech as well as a partnership with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, Apple announced.
One of Apple’s biggest AI upgrades is coming to Siri. The company’s built-in voice assistant will now be powered by large language models, the tech that underlies all modern-day generative AI. Siri, which has languished over the years, may become more useful now that it can interact more closely with Apple’s operating systems and apps. You can, for instance, ask Siri to give you a summary of a news article, delete an email or edit a photo. The assistant will also be able to take more than 100 actions, such as finding photos based on a general description of their contents, or extracting personal information from a picture of your ID to automatically fill in forms online. Finally, you can type your question into Siri instead of using your voice.
Apple Intelligence will be able to quickly summarize web pages in Safari, a feature that already exists on rival web browsers like Arc. You’ll also be able to use Apple Intelligence to quickly catch up on priority notifications. And just like Gmail and Outlook, your devices will be able create fleshed out responses to emails and text messages on your behalf.
Thanks to its partnership with OpenAI, Apple also is baking GPT-4o — OpenAI’s newest large language model — across the system. This means that features like the ability to generate text or ask questions of Siri using pictures can now be handled by GPT-4o instead of just Apple Intelligence. Apple claims unless you connect your paid ChatGPT account to your Apple device, the company won’t store your requests or other identifying information like your IP address.
Apple’s AI updates are a long time coming. The technology has shaken up Silicon Valley ever since OpenAI launched ChatGPT around the end of 2022. Since then, Apple’s rivals like Google, Samsung and Microsoft, as well as companies like Meta have raced to integrate AI features in all their primary products. Last month, Google announced that AI would be a cornerstone of the next version of Android and made major AI-powered changes to its search engine. Samsung, Apple’s primary smartphone competitor, added AI features to its phones earlier this year that can translate calls in real time and edit photos. Microsoft, too, unveiled AI-powered Copilot PCs, aimed at infusing Windows with AI features that include live captioning, image editing, and beefing up systemwide search.
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