Partnership between Apple and OpenAI to dominate WWDC
With iOS 18, the AI functions of OpenAI are to be introduced on iPhones. Apple is also reportedly working on AI on the device itself.
(Image: Apple)
Apple's WWDC developer conference starts in just over two weeks. According to US reports, Apple plans to announce its long-rumored collaboration with OpenAI there. Last week, the AI technology leader presented its omnimodel GPT-4o, which goes far beyond the well-known ChatGPT – Apple itself does not even have its own chatbot at the moment.
According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, OpenAI is to develop one together with Apple. However, this is only the first step: Apple is also working on so-called "proactive intelligence", according to Gurman's sources, most of whom are right. This term refers to AI functions that are executed directly on an iPhone.
These are said to include the automatic transcription of audio notes, the summarization of news articles and unspecified AI functions for image processing. However, Gurman points out that the latter cannot yet compete with the AI tools from Adobe, for example. With proactive intelligence, Apple could put the largely unused neural engines in its self-developed A and M series SoCs to good use after years.
Cloud and on-device together
According to the report, the AI units built into the M chips are already widely used by Apple itself. Apple is already training language models in its data centers to develop its own chatbot, which could potentially serve as a replacement for Siri. According to earlier reports, M2 Ultra SoCs are being used for this.
Apple intends to pursue both approaches, both AI functions on the device and from the cloud, in the long term. Answers to questions about data protection and the privacy of its customers are also expected at WWDC. Both are always a major marketing argument for Apple, which is also emphasized in commercials.
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