Apple unveils big AI push; embeds ChatGPT into iPhones, Siri

While Google, Microsoft and Meta galloped ahead, taking big strides in artificial intelligence, curiously missing in action was Apple. Not anymore, as the Cupertino-based company made a flurry of announcements around embedding the emerging technology across iPhone, iPads and MacBooks at its annual developer conference that kicked off on Monday.

Called Apple Intelligence, the stack of AI features combines generative models developed in-house as well as by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, to deliver personal, contextualised results that Apple claimed will be “incredibly useful and relevant.”

What is Apple Intelligence?


At the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference, or WWDC, Apple announced a personal intelligence system for iPhones, iPads, and Macs that will be deeply integrated into their respective operating systems, harnessing the power of Apple Silicon to understand and create language and images, take actions across apps, and return results with personal context, while preserving user privacy.

What can Apple Intelligence do?

The AI system unlocks new ways for users to enhance their writing and communicate more effectively, Apple said. The system, embedded across all aspects of the operating system, helps users rewrite, proofread and summarise text, create images through prompts, see rough sketches turn into realistic images, see priority notifications on top, create original emojis (called Genmoji), and more.

Apple Intelligence is also embedded in the company’s own voice assistant, Siri, making it more natural, contextually relevant, and personal. The voice assistant can now follow users along different apps, capturing context from one, and applying them on another, and even help troubleshoot issues regarding Apple devices.

The Privacy question

With Apple marrying generative AI with personal context, privacy is an issue that looms large.

“A cornerstone of Apple Intelligence is on-device processing, and many of the models that power it run entirely on device,” Apple said, adding that its AI models set a new standard for privacy in AI.

For queries that are processed at the server level, Apple introduced Private Cloud Compute, using which the intelligence system can flex and scale its computational capacity, between on-device processing and larger, server-based models. These models, Apple said, run on servers powered by its own chips, with the company opening up to independent experts who can inspect the code that runs the servers to verify privacy.

“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,” the company said.