Apple is finally entering the world of generative artificial intelligence with a little help from its unexpected new partner at OpenAI.
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced Apple’s long-awaited AI at its Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino on June 10. Apple unveiled the first devices powered by “Apple Intelligence” from personalized Genmoji to a much smarter Siri. Apple also announced that it will be incorporating external AI models into its software, starting with OpenAI’s ChatGPT later this year.
Apple is using generative AI—a form of artificial intelligence that can provide thoughtful, comprehensive responses to questions—through Siri, its virtual assistant, allowing Siri to perform specific tasks like recalling a picture taken years ago on your device or answering detailed questions about the weather or the news. Users can also create personalized photos, such as taking a cartoon version of themselves. It can take actions across apps, including asking the software to take all your photos together and pulling and analyzing data from across your apps.
Apple Intelligence is deeply integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, harnessing the power of Apple Silicon to understand and render language and images, take actions across apps, and capture personal context to simplify and speed up everyday tasks.
The company said it was impressed with the generative AI tools already on the market, but wanted to make them even more personal with privacy in mind. Apple Intelligence will be designed with privacy in mind, using Private Cloud Compute technology to ensure that requests are processed on-device or on servers powered by Apple Silicon chips, running the Swift programming language, and are privacy-verifiable to Apple’s standards.
