Apple has finally entered the generative AI race with the announcement of "Apple Intelligence," a new suite of AI features deeply integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Revealed at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, the system brings powerful new capabilities to a revamped Siri and core applications, leveraging both on-device processing and a partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT.
A New Era of Personal Intelligence
According to Apple, Apple Intelligence is a "personal intelligence system" designed to be helpful and relevant by understanding a user's personal context. The system is built on a foundation of on-device generative models that handle most tasks directly on the iPhone, iPad, or Mac, prioritizing user privacy. For more complex requests that require a larger model, Apple introduced Private Cloud Compute, which uses secure, Apple silicon-powered servers to process data without storing it or making it accessible to Apple.
This hybrid approach allows the system to perform actions like organizing notifications, summarizing text, and creating images without sending personal data to the cloud. It can pull information from across different apps, understanding context from emails, calendars, and messages to complete tasks for the user.
Siri's Long-Awaited Upgrade with ChatGPT
The most significant update is the overhaul of Siri, which is now more natural, contextually aware, and capable of understanding conversational nuances and maintaining context across multiple requests. The biggest news is its integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT.
When a user makes a request that Siri believes could benefit from ChatGPT's broader world knowledge or advanced language capabilities, it will ask for permission to send the query to the service. Apple states:
- Users are prompted before any data is sent to ChatGPT.
- Requests are not stored by OpenAI.
- User IP addresses are obscured.
- Users can access ChatGPT for free without creating an account. Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus can connect their accounts for access to paid features.
System-Wide AI Tools for Daily Tasks
Apple Intelligence powers a range of new features across the operating systems, including:
- Writing Tools: A system-wide feature that allows users to rewrite, proofread, and summarize text nearly anywhere they can write, including Mail, Notes, and third-party apps.
- Image Playground: An on-device image generation tool that lets users create images in Animation, Illustration, or Sketch styles, built into apps like Messages and also available as a standalone app.
- Genmoji: Users can create original emoji characters by typing a description.