Apple caught flat-footed on generative AI; company preps AI features for devices, software

Tim Cook’s Apple was caught flat-footed when ChatGPT and other AI tools took the technology industry by storm. Now, after some frozen deer-in-the-headlights panic, executives are prepping to deliver AI across a wide range of devices and software.

Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News’ Power On:
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One of the most intense and widespread endeavors at Apple Inc. right now is its effort to respond to the AI frenzy sweeping the technology industry.

The company has some catching up to do. Apple largely sat on the sidelines when OpenAI’s ChatGPT took off like a rocket last year… Now, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook says that Apple has been working on generative AI technology for years. But I can tell you in no uncertain terms that Apple executives were caught off guard by the industry’s sudden AI fever and have been scrambling since late last year to make up for lost time.

“There’s a lot of anxiety about this and it’s considered a pretty big miss internally,” a person with knowledge of the matter told Power On.

Apple’s senior vice presidents in charge of AI and software engineering, John Giannandrea and Craig Federighi, are spearheading the effort. On Cook’s team, they’re referred to as the “executive sponsors” of the generative AI push. Eddy Cue, the head of services, is also involved, I’m told. The trio are now on course to spend about $1 billion per year on the undertaking.

Giannandrea is overseeing development of the underlying technology for a new AI system, and his team is revamping Siri in a way that will deeply implement it. This smarter version of Siri could be ready as soon as next year…

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MacDailyNews Take: Thanks to the products Steve Jobs built, the company can now afford to be somewhat reactive at times. For a company like Apple, generative AI is not tremendously difficult; it’s what it’s fed that’s most important, followed by where it’s done: on-device-only (high privacy), cloud-only (encrypted, hopefully), or some mix of the two.
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