Apple moves cautiously on AI as other tech giants jump ahead

As all the other big names in tech have jumped on the generative AI bandwagon, Apple, while not completely ignorant of the technology, has largely stayed on the sidelines.

driving the news: With Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon defending their turf, analysts are likely to question Apple’s relative silence on the issue when the company reports earnings on Thursday.

catch up fast: Until now, Apple’s use of large language models has been comparatively modest.

• The company announced in June that it is using technology to improve autocorrect and dictation in iOS 17,.
• But even then he avoided using popular labels like “AI,” “GPT,” or even “big language model,” choosing the more obscure term “transformer” to name the underlying technology. (Transformers, first proposed in a paper 2017 by Google Brain researchers, were a key breakthrough behind today’s AI explosion).

Apple is also said be internally testing your own GPT type motoraccording to Bloomberg.

• The company’s web-based app is reportedly similar to Google’s ChatGPT and Bard. Bloomberg said Apple is still weighing whether and how to incorporate such technology into its products.
• There are a few other clues in Apple’s published research in the field, including how to use transformative approaches in Apple’s hardware development and how that technology can be used to improve image capture.

The panorama: Apple has a historic valuation of $3 trillion, dominance of the high-end smartphone market, rivers of profits, and the ability to command the world’s attention for new products like the recently introduced one. Vision Pro Headphones. Tim Cook is unlikely to panic.

Yes, but: Everybody in Silicon Valley sees platform transitions — like the advent of the internet, the smartphone, and now, perhaps, generative AI — like moments when the giants can lose their footing.

Between lines: The risk for Apple is that new AI technology could make rival hardware more attractive.

• Microsoft is building AI-assisted co-pilots in Windows and Office, as well as its Edge browser.
• As Axios has reported in the last two weeks, both Google and Amazon they plan to revamp their digital assistants with AI generative makeovers.
• Apple’s own assistant, Siri, has languished even longer than Alexa and the Google Assistant, and the same logic that drives those companies to reboot AI for their assistants also applies to Siri.

what are they saying: Apple hasn’t said much about its plans, though what little it has said suggest a cautious approach.

• “The potential for generative AI and LLMs is definitely promising,” Tim Cook said during May’s quarterly earnings call. “But clearly there are a number of issues and concerns that need to be addressed, so I think it’s very important to be deliberate and thoughtful in developing and implementing these models.”
• in a june interview With “Good Morning America,” Cook highlighted new features in iOS 17, noting that its uses of machine learning to detect falls, car accidents, and irregular heartbeats “are not only great features, but they are saving people’s lives.” “.

be smart: Apple often prefers to let others be the first with a new technology and release products when it feels there is an opportunity to improve the user experience and bring technical advances into the mainstream.

Our thought bubble: Apple’s big break could be in offering users generative AI with more privacy guarantees, perhaps by running it locally on the iPhone and other devices.