Apple unveils Apple Intelligence & OpenAI partnership at WWDC 2024

Well, technically, it’s been incorporating AI and machine learning into its products for quite a while; its AI-powered voice assistant Siri launched 13 years ago. But during the opening keynote at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) today, the company made some much-anticipated product announcements through which it hopes to compete with other Silicon Valley giants – including Microsoft, Google and Meta – that have been making big strides over the past year and a half or so to build and commercialize AI.

The company’s big reveal today was Apple Intelligence (a play on ’AI’), a system upgrade designed to bring generative AI into users’ hands by integrating the technology into an array of on-device apps and services.

Multiple new text- and image-generation features were unveiled today. A new feature in Notes, for example, allows users to record and transcribe audio and then quickly create summaries using generative AI. Another new feature called Genmoji allows users – as you can probably guess from the name – to create custom emojis based on a simple prompt. Users will also be able to generate illustrations of friends or family members to add some personalized flair to text conversations.

A new and improved Siri, meanwhile, will be able to more effectively understand and interact with users through natural language and will also have more robust capabilities across apps in the Apple ecosystem.

“We think Apple Intelligence is going to be indispensable to the products that already play such an integral role in our lives,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said towards the end of the keynote, which was streamed online and onto a giant screen at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Apple is leaning heavily into personalization offerings, in particular in an effort to stand out from competitors who entered the generative AI ring earlier.

“Apple Intelligence is the personal intelligence system that puts powerful generative models right at the core of your iPhone, iPad and Mac,” Apple senior vice-president of software engineering Craig Federighi said during today’s keynote. “It draws on your personal context to give you an intelligence that’s most helpful and relevant for you.”

At the same time, the company is underscoring its commitment to privacy – a principle it has put at the heart of its brand. According to Federighi, Apple Intelligence is built with on-device data processing so that user information isn’t sent to third-party cloud databases. “It’s aware of your personal data without collecting your personal data,” he said.

Apple will begin rolling out Apple Intelligence in beta to users this fall.

The company also announced that it has partnered with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into Siri. With the Siri integration, users will have the option, for example, to use the chatbot for certain queries that require longer, more detailed answers. Apple said that no OpenAI account will be required, and that users’ query history will not be stored. ChatGPT will also be available to Apple device users for some text- and image-generation tasks.

The ChatGPT integration will be rolled out later this year.

Apple’s announcements today are a big deal, as the company has been facing pressure to start innovating in the field of generative AI – which has been just about the only thing the tech world, many investors and much of the media have been able to talk about since ChatGPT’s 2022 debut.

Last week, Nvidia – the American chipmaker whose GPUs have become an essential building block in the AI Gold Rush – crept ahead of Apple as the second most valuable company in the world.

Apple’s 2024 WWDC will continue until Friday, June 14.

For more on the latest happenings in AI, web3 and other cutting-edge technologies, sign up for The Emerging Tech Briefing newsletter.