When compared to its rivals, Apple has been lagging behind in the AI department. While Siri was a decent virtual assistant when it first launched in 2011, today it’s noticeably limited when compared to Google Assistant. And although Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI continue to publicly develop more advanced tools in the generative AI department, Apple still doesn’t have much to offer its consumers. This, however, could be changing as soon as next year.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has been internally developing its own generative AI tools, including a chatbot dubbed as Apple GPT. The report states that this tool was created last year, and its access has been increasingly expanding across Apple employees. For now, it still requires a special form of approval, and employees aren’t allowed to use its results in consumer products. Nonetheless, the engineers have reportedly been relying on this chatbot to summarize text and improve prototypes. Gurman explains:
Apple employees say the company’s tool essentially replicates Bard, ChatGPT and Bing AI, and doesn’t include any novel features or technology. The system is accessible as a web application and has a stripped-down design not meant for public consumption. As such, Apple has no current plans to release it to consumers, though it is actively working to improve its underlying models.
For now, Apple is seemingly still trying to determine how to utilize these smarts in its consumer products. After all, the company tends to stick to reliable and stable releases. So while Google and other companies are beta-testing these generative AI tools with the public, the Cupertino firm could refrain from putting out a product until it’s certain where it’s headed. Though, with the upcoming Vision Pro heavily relying on voice commands, we can only hope that Apple feeds Siri some of the knowledge included in its AI foundation. And if the rumors turn out to be true, some of these major Apple AI developments could come to fruition as soon as next year.