There is no doubt that Apple is late to the field of artificial intelligence. While Microsoft and Google have rolled out proprietary generative AI technology and integrated it into their larger platforms, Apple has remained silent on the trend — given the buzz generated by AI and the fact that Apple is For one of the most progressive companies in the world, this silence is surprising. Valuable technology company. Hell, even Meta is going all out to add invasive AI features to its products.
But if the rumors and speculation are true, Apple is ready to make some noise. The company is widely expected to roll out major AI features this year as part of its suite of new software updates, including iOS 18. We don’t even need to turn to rumors or believe unsubstantiated claims to deduce this: Apple researchers have already made public most of their AI progress, such as the company’s proprietary AI models, AI image editors, and artificial intelligence Smart image animator works.
Even if all of this work was done in-house, Apple likely wouldn't have the resources to put all of its upcoming AI features together without assistance. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the company is currently in talks to outsource some of its artificial intelligence processing needs to OpenAI and its generative artificial intelligence technology. If the deal goes through, Apple could use OpenAI's GPT model to run chatbots such as ChatGPT in iOS, among other new features.
This isn't the first time the company has approached OpenAI about such a deal, nor is it the first time Apple has sought out third parties for artificial intelligence processing. For example, we know the company is in discussions with Google to license Gemini for some of its artificial intelligence projects. Apple still appears to be exploring its options of who to partner with, and may even partner with another party entirely.
However, you might think the company would be more concerned with the timing of these deals: WWDC is just over two months away, when all eyes will be on Apple to see how the company fares in its AI department. The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 kicked off this AI craze; Apple will join the bandwagon a year and a half later, and the tech world will notice how much (or how little) the company has done to embrace AI in the short term.
Until then, Apple may be hedging its bets and seeing how much it can handle on its own before committing to outsourcing its AI processes. If the company could power an AI-upgraded Siri on its own devices, that would be much better for them than relying on Google or OpenAI's technology. Anything outsourced to other companies will likely need to be handled in the cloud, making them less secure. On-device AI would limit your information to your iPhone, while cloud-based AI could leave your data exposed to the eyes of Google, OpenAI, or anyone else Apple might partner with.
