Apple has taken its own sweet time jumping on the AI bandwagon, but in hindsight, that might have been a very intelligent thing to do. Using the ‘late mover advantage’ to the hilt, Apple Intelligence, or Cupertino’s version of AI, plugs a lot of loose ends in the initial on-device implementation of artificial intelligence. Apple Intelligence = Personal Intelligence in the tech giant’s books and this means its version comes with an added layer of personal context which has been lacking in GenAI so far. This so-called Apple Intelligence is baked into the new versions of the operating system for iPhone, iPad and Mac and will help users take GenAI help across apps as well as in different aspects of the OS itself, including in Siri. Being Apple, there is always a push for privacy in all this with a lot of the tasks being done on the device itself while for others it will use "Private Cloud Compute” running on dedicated Apple silicon servers. Apple devices will also offer access to ChatGPT natively but without the users having to reveal who they are or any log of their queries being saved. So, how is it different from what Samsung or Google has done? So far no company has done such a widespread integration with AI assisting with writing across apps or offering the ability to generate an image based on your photos. Apple now offers the capability for the devices to prioritise mail and alerts for your particular context and even summarise these emails in the preview itself focusing on action points. While others have also offered image generators on the device, this is the first time users get the option to generate an image based on photos of their friends and family and use it while sending messages or emails. GenAI also takes on-device image search to a whole new level and will give users the option to search based on specific queries like the colour of a dress in a photo. Interestingly, they will also be able to search and find data from inside photos and input these directly while filling a form — for example, a passport number. Is Siri benefitting from this AI push? Yes, Apple has completely reimagined Siri, interestingly the first intelligent assistant the world used at scale. Siri now understands text input too and keeps the context of any conversation. It is also the keeper of all knowledge about the device you are using and users can just ask it how a certain thing can be done on the iPhone or iPad. It can now actually assist with a lot of stuff and again keeping the context of the app in which it is being used. Is Apple Intelligence more secure? Apple is claiming that most of the queries will be answered on devices using Apple silicon. And when it needs to leverage the power of additional servers, it will use Private Cloud Compute models run on servers powered by Apple silicon. Even in these instances, Apple will not have access to the data. For the system-wide ChatGPT integration, Apple is claiming that OpenAI will not get to see who the users it or log the query. However, paid users of ChatGPT will be able to connect their accounts on the device and get the full benefit of their membership. However, since this is a system-wide integration of OpenAI’s model, there are already questions being asked on what all this external company will able to see.
