Apple is reportedly hard at work on not just its ownChatGPT-like chatbot but also a framework that can be used to create others, but it’s still unclear how any of that is going to help users of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches all around the world.
The world of generative AI is one that is now growing at a breakneck rate and Apple is reportedly keen to ensure that it won’t be left behind, despite a slow start. A new report has detailed Apple’s efforts to get back in the game, but questions still remain about what utility Apple GPT will have for those of us outside of Apple.
Apple GPT, but not for you
Bloomberg’sMark Gurman writes that Apple has already built its own framework for creating large language models (LLM) with Ajax the name that’s being used inside the company. Apple GPT is also the unofficial name that has been given to the first chatbot created by the company.
The report notes that AI has become a focus for Apple in recent months, with engineers with AI experience high on the wanted list in terms of new recruits for the company. The renewed AI focus has already helped to improve search and maps on iPhones and other devices, Gurman says, and Ajax is being used to create new LLMs. It’s also become the foundation for Apple GPT, an internal ChatGPT-like tool that is only available to specific people within the company.
“The chatbot app was created as an experiment at the end of last year by a tiny engineering team,” the report says, adding that “there’s also a significant caveat: Any output from it can’t be used to develop features bound for customers.”
However, it still isn’t clear whether Apple GPT will ever see the light of day or how Apple intends to use its key learnings from both it and Ajax to build new features for users. Apple already uses AI smarts in various apps, including the Photos and Camera apps to help with photography, but it needs to go further.
Siri is Apple’s digital assistant but it’s long in the tooth and has long been seen as a poor alternative to smarter assistants likeAlexaandGoogle Assistant. Could Apple’s new focus on LLMs help turn Siri into something new, giving it the power to help people in their daily lives beyond its current staple of turning on and off smart lights and sending Google search results to people’s iPhones?
That will be the big question here, and timelines are important as well. Gurman’s report says that Apple could be ready to announce a major AI initiative as soon as next year. If that’s the case, could we see iOS 18 ship with the biggest Siri revamp to date? An announcement at WWDC in June 2024 could give Apple the time to finalize everything in time for a launch in or around September of that year. That will surely depend on how well development progresses inside Apple, however.
What is clear is thatiOS 17won’t have the Siri improvements we’d hoped for when it arrives this fall. Maybe iOS 18 will be the big AI update that Apple and its long-suffering Siri users so desperately need.
