Apple launches user test with chatbot for support requests
The first users of Apple's official support app for the iPhone can try out an early version of the company's first chatbot.
Chatbot in the support app: Apple breaks new ground.
Apple famously rejects “real” chatbots – prefers them delivered by OpenAI. But now the iPhone company has launched its first voice model that can be queried using chat inputs: the Apple Support Assistant. The first signs of this emerged a few weeks ago, but now the first users in the United States can try out the technology. It is part of Apple's official support app for the iPhone and supplements existing chat-based help services backed by real people.
Apple warns like OpenAI and Google
A “select number of iPhone users” are already seeing the service, reports Macrumors. It is unclear how these are selected. Those who are in the test pool can press a chat button. Further information then appears about the “Chat with Support”, which is an “early preview”. “Try our automated chat feature, a new way to find solutions quickly.” According to Apple, the system can solve “common problems” quickly, including troubleshooting and further answers, as long as it concerns “Apple products and services.”
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If that doesn't help, you can also get in touch with Apple experts: “Support from the people who know Apple best.” However, Apple also warns that the chatbot can “make mistakes” and that it is an "experimental feature" – Statements like those that have long been familiar from OpenAI or Google when it comes to their AI products. “Check important information.”
Own terms of use for chatbot
The support chatbot itself is rather unspectacular. Like similar products, it is only intended to provide information on support and products. The system rejects free questions, and of course the chatbot does not even know which devices are not yet available. It is not yet possible to say how helpful the system itself is due to the small number of user reports available. Mac & i itself has not yet been able to try out the feature. What is useful is that chats can be escalated relatively quickly to a human supporter.
It is unclear which language model Apple uses for the support assistant. According to the “Terms of Use”, these are “generative models” that “may occasionally produce false, misleading, incomplete, offensive or harmful results”. Apple has already integrated an AI-based support function in Apple Intelligence, but it does not work like a chatbot. The company has developed its own basic models but has recently lost key employees to Meta.
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