Sam Altman, chief executive of new Apple partner OpenAI, sat in the front row and mingled with attendees, at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference. Photo / AP
Sam Altman, chief executive of new Apple partner OpenAI, sat in the front row and mingled with attendees, at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference. Photo / AP
Apple jumped into the race to bring generative artificial intelligence to the masses during its World Wide Developers Conference Monday (Tuesday NZT), previewing an onslaught of features designed to soup up the iPhone and other popular products with technology already available on rival devices.
In a twist befitting a company known for its marketing prowess, the AI technology coming to iPhones, iPads and Mac computers later this year is being billed as “Apple Intelligence”.
Even as it tried to put its stamp on the hottest area of technology, Apple acknowledged it needed some help to catch up with others such as Microsoft and Google, who have emerged as the early leaders in the field. Apple is leaning on ChatGPT, made by the San Francisco startup OpenAI, to help make its often-bumbling virtual assistant Siri smarter and more helpful.
To herald the alliance with Apple, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sat in the front row of the packed conference, which included developers attending from more than 60 countries worldwide.
Apple Intelligence will include tools to summarise text, correct mistakes, or change its tone. There will be new tools for summarisinig or quickly replying to emails, and the Notes and Phone apps will record, transcribe and summarise audio. Photo / AP
“All of this goes beyond artificial intelligence, it’s personal intelligence, and it is the next big step for Apple,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.
Beyond giving Siri the ability to tap into ChatGPT’s AI-driving skills, Apple is giving its 13-year-old virtual assistant an extensive makeover designed to make it more personable and versatile than it is now, even as it fields about 1.5 billion queries a day.
The company has promised a more natural interactive experience with richer language comprehension. Siri can plug into the intelligence of ChatGPT to process more specific queries.
The financial terms of the Apple-OpenAI alliance have not been disclosed. Altman didn’t speak at the event but posted to X: “Very happy to be partnering with Apple to integrate ChatGPT into their devices later this year! Think you will really like it.”
Apple emphasised its approach to AI will be focused on protecting user privacy, with models running locally on devices and on its own servers, powered by its latest chips. More complex queries will be sent to the cloud, but be handled by encrypted Apple servers on what the company calls Private Cloud Compute.
Cook described “Apple Intelligence” as a “new personal intelligence system” based on Apple’s own generative AI models and customised to the user.
“It’s aware of your personal data without collecting your personal data,” said Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice-president of software engineering.
Extra smarts are also coming to Apple’s AirPods Pro later this year. With Siri Interactions, a user will be able to nod their head for yes or shake it for no.
When Apple releases free updates to the software powering the iPhone and its other products this spring, Siri will signal its presence with glowing, flashing lights along the edges of the display screen, and be able to handle hundreds of more tasks - including chores that may require tapping into third-party devices - than it can now, based on Monday’s presentations.
