Apple is reportedly working on multiple generative AI-based features that encompass many of its apps and services. The company hopes to publicly launch some of those features, including a revamped Siri, as soon as next year, according to a new Bloomberg report.
According to the newest edition of the weekly Power On newsletter, Apple is hard at work to catch up to the “AI frenzy” that has swept the industry. The company’s generative AI efforts are currently headed by senior executives John Giannandrea and Craig Federighi, with major involvement from Eddy Cue. Giannandrea’s team is currently working on an advanced generative AI model that could power a revamped Siri as soon as next year, presumably as part of iOS 18.
On the other hand, Federighi’s team is working to add as many AI features as possible to iOS 18, the report adds. The features will allegedly be based on Apple’s Large Language Model (LLM) framework which was reported earlier. The goal is to dramatically improve the ability of apps such as Messages and Siri to better understand questions contextually and to provide more accurate auto-complete predictions for sentences and phrases.
AI features could also be heading to software development tools like Xcode, allowing developers to write and test apps faster than before by presenting auto-complete suggestions for written code. Cue’s team is leading other rumored features, including AI-generated playlists on Apple Music as well as auto-generating slide decks and writing assistance on Keynote and Pages.
Apple is currently deliberating the deployment strategy for generative AI, the report adds. The company is contemplating between an entirely on-device model for speed and privacy or a cloud-based setup for more advanced capabilities. The former limits quick adaptability in a rapidly evolving industry, potentially pushing Apple towards a mixed approach, leveraging on-device processing for certain functions and the cloud for more sophisticated tasks.
Earlier reports indicated that Apple is now spending millions of dollars a day on its AI endeavors. The company is also said to have developed an internal ChatGPT-like tool dubbed “Apple GPT” as a way to test its AI frameworks before launching consumer-facing features next year.