Here Comes Apple: Artificial Intelligence Brief

Apple jumped into the emerging artificial intelligence space seemingly out of nowhere. But it has been quietly planning its market entry for years. 

So while the industry was declaring Apple's deal with OpenAI dead on arrival, the company has been pushing its top programmers to integrate ChatGPT into all of its products. 

So it shouldn’t be a huge shocker that Apple made a deal with OpenAI to use its AI technology, likely to improve services like Siri. 

This partnership is seen as a short term arrangement for Apple as it works on developing its own in-house AI capabilities.

Now, with all due respect, Apple is known for pioneering innovative products and technologies, and invests heavily in research, pouring $21 billion into R&D in 2021, so it is capable of developing a proprietary AI platform. The question is, should it bother? 

Regardless of whether it leverages existing platforms or takes its own proprietary route per its standard operating procedure, Apple's strong brand identity and customer loyalty can rapidly drive adoption of its AI offerings.

Embrace and Extend A Winner

That’s why Apple is so intensely focused on integrating generative AI capabilities, including ChatGPT technology, into its product lineup, particularly for the upcoming iOS 18 release for iPhones.

Apple is finalizing a deal with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT features into iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system. This will allow Apple to offer a popular chatbot as part of new AI features planned for announcements next month.

If Apple is successful in striking a licensing deal with Google for its Gemini chatbot, the competitive winds could shift. 

Partnerships like this will propel Apple to reach new heights of achievement in the space by leveraging advanced AI models from OpenAI and Google to power cloud-based generative AI features on iPhones and potentially other Apple devices.

Pushing Corporate Ego Aside

The merits of Apple investing hundreds of millions in internally testing and developing its own large language models, referred to as "Apple GPT" or the "Ajax" framework, are questionable, as Apple is sorely lacking a clear strategy for creating a consumer-facing generative AI product. 

But at the same time it is investing heavily in AI research, spending millions per day on conversational AI and investing over $4 billion planned for AI servers in 2024. Maybe it can develop and bring to market a better AI product. Or maybe not. Does it matter? 

Regardless of who invents the future of AI, Apple will deeply integrate AI capabilities across its product lineup, including Siri enhancements, AI writing/creative tools for apps like Pages and Keynote, and automated multi-step task assistance.

For iOS 18 specifically, Apple plans AI-powered improvements to Siri's conversation abilities, message auto-completion, and personalization across devices.

Shark Infested Waters

Intense competition from tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon who are also investing heavily in AI will force Apple to be humble and  stay on its toes . Rapid technological changes require continuous AI innovation to stay ahead.

Brushing aside concerns about trusting Open AI and potential privacy implications of the deal, Apple is expected to host OpenAI's models privately without sharing user data, punting the privacy issue to a future time for debate. 

The Cult Of Personality

The deal cements Altman's control at OpenAI after internal power struggles and allows OpenAI to monetize its technology with another major tech company, on the heels of its $10 billion deal with Microsoft. 

Apple has long prioritized user privacy and on-device processing over cloud-based services. Partnering with OpenAI, which relies on cloud computing and large language models trained on vast amounts of user data, seems to be in conflict with Apple’s core principles.

Is Apple Veering Off Course To Chase AI?

Historically, Apple has favored developing its own proprietary technologies and services rather than relying on third-party solutions, especially for core features.

So integrating OpenAI's ChatGPT into its operating systems is an unexpected move for a company known for its vertically integrated approach. That said, did Apple really have a choice? 

Unlike other tech giants like Microsoft and Google, Apple has appeared to be slower to embrace generative AI publicly which could be by design to keep its secrets under wraps or simply because it is too far behind to close the gap. 

The company is known for refining and polishing technologies before releasing them to consumers, making a sudden partnership with OpenAI for cutting-edge AI seem unlikely.

Despite these factors, ready or not, Apple needs to catch up in the rapidly evolving AI landscape by integrating a powerful language model like ChatGPT. 

And the urgency to enter the market quickly likely outweighed competitive concerns, leading to the once-improbable deal with OpenAI. 

Will This Be A Blip On The Radar In 2 Years?

Now that it has, Apple's deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iPhones and iOS 18 could significantly change the AI landscape.  Integrating ChatGPT into iOS will make OpenAI's powerful language model accessible to hundreds of millions of iPhone users worldwide. This could popularize and mainstream advanced AI capabilities like natural language processing and generation.

Apple's user-friendly implementation could make complex AI more approachable and usable for average consumers, not just tech enthusiasts, accelerating AI Adoption. 

The deal will allow Apple to rapidly deploy cutting-edge AI capabilities on iPhones without solely relying on its in-house "Apple GPT" model development. 

Having ChatGPT's AI integrated into iOS 18 could spur other mobile companies to accelerate their own AI integration across devices and operating systems to remain competitive with Apple. 

So where does this leave Microsoft's with its $10 billion investment and cloud computing deal with OpenAI? That depends on how well it leverages its first to market advantage.  

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