Apple today announced a refresh to the MacBook Air lineup. While the updates are mostly limited to performance improvements thanks to the M3 chip, the language that Apple is using in its press release could be a sign of the company’s future intentions with artificial intelligence.

Apple usually touts the AI capabilities of Apple silicon enabled by the Neural Engine and GPU using the term “machine learning.” But with the M3 MacBook Air announcement, the company is heavily and explicitly using the term “AI” instead of the usual “machine learning” moniker.

Apple has usually ceded the use of “AI” or “artificial intelligence” throughout its past press releases. For example, the announcement of the M3 MacBook Pro last year does not include a single mention of “AI” or “artificial intelligence”. Instead, Apple has used the term “machine learning” four times to tout the MacBook Pro’s Neural Engine and GPU capabilities. The same careful language is observed in the marketing material of the iPhone 15 Pro, with Apple using machine learning to describe the A17 Pro’s performance gains.

However, Apple no longer appears shy to use AI terminology in its official language, to the point where the M3 MacBook Air’s press release includes an entire subsection titled “World’s Best Consumer Laptop for AI.” To add fuel to the fire, the press release includes at least ten mentions of AI, compared to just one for machine learning. Here is what Apple has to say about the AI performance of the new MacBook Air (emphasis ours):

With the transition to Apple silicon, every Mac is a great platform for AI. M3 includes a faster and more efficient 16-core Neural Engine, along with accelerators in the CPU and GPU to boost on-device machine learning, making MacBook Air the world’s best consumer laptop for AI. Leveraging this incredible AI performance, macOS delivers intelligent features that enhance productivity and creativity, so users can enable powerful camera features, real-time speech to text, translation, text predictions, visual understanding, accessibility features, and much more.

Apple

Apple CEO Tim Cook continues to tease the company’s imminent announcement of AI investments across its platforms. After stating that the company was “investing quite a bit” in generative AI last year, Cook once again teased Apple’s AI ambitions by saying that it will “break new ground” in the technology sometime this year.

Apple is strongly rumored to preparing significant AI announcements for iOS 18 and more at WWDC 2024. The introduction of AI features is said to span multiple areas of iOS 18 and macOS 15, including Siri, Spotlight Search, Messages, Apple Music, Xcode, and more. The scope of AI features, alongside expected UI design changes, is expected to make iOS 18 one of the biggest software updates in the iPhone’s history.