Source: Apple
This week at WWDC 2024, Apple announced its newest advancements in AI technology, branded as Apple Intelligence. Our Founder, Dr. Sarah Mitchell, shares her insights on these updates, covering their novel features, practical applications, and implications for the future of consumer AI.
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Apple has unveiled Apple Intelligence, or AI for short (not that we need another AI acronym, thanks Apple). The technology marks a significant leap in Apple’s Artificial Intelligence technology, integrating advanced capabilities across personal devices such as iPhones, iPads, and Macs. This new system enhances natural language understanding, image recognition, and on-device privacy, promising a more intuitive and secure experience for Apple device users. Here’s a comprehensive summary for those who missed the announcements.
1. Apple's Vision for Consumer AI
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Apple Intelligence is designed to seamlessly integrate AI into the daily lives of consumers. Unlike competitors focusing on enterprise solutions, Apple's approach centers around enhancing personal devices like iPhones, iPads, and Macs with AI capabilities that feel natural and intuitive. Apple has coined this type of technology a 'personal intelligence system'. The updates will be available later this year on select iOS 18 devices, specifically the iPhone 15 Pro devices, plus the M1 Mac and iPad devices.
What It Means for Consumers:
For everyday users, this means your iPhone, iPad, and Mac will become smarter, more helpful, and more responsive to your needs. The AI will intuitively assist with tasks like managing schedules, setting reminders, and even automating routine tasks. The downside is you'll likely need to fork out for a new compatible device.
The Image Wand can transform a sketch into a related image. Source: Apple
2. Privacy at the Core
Apple is taking privacy seriously. Most AI processing is done on your device using Apple's own small language model. This AI model is specifically designed to run on a phone or tablet, helping ensure your user data remains private and secure.
For complex questions or tasks that require more advanced off-device AI capability, Apple will use cloud-based models. Your question will be sent to Apple's servers in an anonymised format, and will only be temporarily stored, providing peace of mind while using advanced AI features​.
What It Means for Consumers:
What Apple Intelligence learns about you will, for the most part, stay on your device. And if data is transferred off-device it will be anonymised and stored temporarily.
Most importantly, it has to understand you and be grounded in your personal context, like your routine, your relationships, your communications, and more. And of course, it has to be built with privacy from the ground up together. All of this goes beyond artificial intelligence. It’s personal intelligence, and it’s the next big step for Apple.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO
3. Language and Image Enhancements
Apple Intelligence brings significant upgrades in language and image processing. These AI tools can better understand and generate natural language, and they include improved image recognition capabilities. Users can search for specific scenes in videos or photos using natural language, and new features like the Clean Up tool can remove unwanted objects from images without affecting the main subjects​​.
What It Means for Consumers:
Your search terms will no longer have to exactly match what you're looking for - a 'close enough' search should yield good results. For example, you can easily find that photo from last summer’s vacation by briefly describing it to Siri. You'll also be able to clean up your images with just a few taps, making photo editing accessible and straightforward for everyone.
4. Enhanced Siri and Cross-App Functionality
Apple Intelligence brings a major upgrade to Siri, enhancing its natural language understanding and contextual awareness. Users will be able to type or speak their commands, and Siri will be able to maintain context across interactions and apps, making follow-up commands more intuitive.
Siri will also be able to execute more complex tasks, including cross-app compatibility such as scheduling emails or adding addresses from text messages directly to contacts​​.
What It Means for Consumers:
Siri is going to get a whole lot more helpful, and in time you won't have to switch between apps such as Mail, Calendar, or Maps to perform a task - Apple Intelligence will be able to operate across the apps for you.
Siri can help you with step-by-step instructions. Source: Apple
5. Personalised Genmoji and Image Playground
A fun feature of Apple Intelligence is Genmoji, which allows users to create personalized emojis based on descriptions or photos. This tool can be used to generate emojis that resemble friends and family, adding a personal touch to communications. Additionally, the Image Playground lets users generate and edit images with ease, offering tools like the Magic Eraser to remove unwanted objects from photos​.
What It Means for Consumers:
Whether you want to turn a family photo into a cartoon or remove an unwanted background object, these features will make using AI fun for the whole family.
Make a Genmoji to match any conversation. Source: Apple
6. Apple Intelligence Integration with OpenAI
Apple also confirmed plans to integrate OpenAI's ChatGPT across Apple platforms, showcasing a collaborative approach to advancing AI capabilities on their devices. As an option to users, Siri will be able to call on ChatGPT to better answer your queries. Furthermore, a possible future Google partnership could enhance cross-platform AI functionalities, benefiting users who utilize both Apple and Google ecosystems​​.
What It Means for Consumers:
With Apple Intelligence you will be able to choose whether you'd like Siri to answer your question with ChatGPT.Â
7. Limited Availability and Device Requirements
Despite the exciting features, there are some limitations. Apple Intelligence won't be available until later in the year, and will require the latest hardware, such as the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or newer iPads and Macs with M1 chips​. The list of compatible devices can be found here​.
What It Means for Consumers:
Users with older devices will need to consider upgrading to take full advantage of these new AI capabilities.
Final Thoughts
Apple Intelligence represents a significant leap in consumer AI. As we await the official rollout, the potential for Apple to redefine consumer interactions with AI is clear​. Much like original iPhone features such as email or internet access, on-device AI such as Apple Intelligence will soon become a ubiquitous capability that we will all take for granted.
Check out more info from Apple below:
Introducing Apple Intelligence: https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/
Apple Intelligence press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/06/introducing-apple-intelligence-for-iphone-ipad-and-mac/
The recording of the WWDC24 announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXeOiIDNNek
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Curious about how to incorporate Apple Intelligence into your workflows? At Anadyne IQ, we're a straight-talking AI consultancy that values clarity over complexity. We assist companies in adopting the latest AI technologies, without the jargon or confusion. Reach out to discover how we can help you leverage Apple Intelligence to boost your business's productivity and efficiency.
