Apple may have just explained how Siri is actually going to become useful
Using on-screen awareness and context from your personal life and app usage, Apple may finally be able to prove AI is more than just a sideshow.
If you missed Apple's annual developer conference, rest easy knowing that you didn't miss much.
To illustrate this point: one of the most surprising things Apple announced was that it's finally bringing the calculator app to iPad.
And then there are the AI integrations (though Apple impressively managed to avoid saying "AI" for most of the conference).
Apple's bringing "Apple Intelligence" features to iOS 18. Basically, these will allow you to use genAI across apps. Picture: generative rewrites of your emails, text-to-image generation, and summaries of group chats. Perhaps less useful: the ability to create custom AI emojis ("Genmojis").
Siri's getting an AI makeover: The OG voice assistant will supposedly be smarter (oddly, Apple chose to demonstrate this by asking it to pull up the weather). Notably, Siri will be able to pull info from different apps (messages, mail, maps, search, etc.) to better answer questions and cross-reference. For example, you could ask: "Will I make it in time to pick up mom from the airport?" and it would find the message with your mother's flight details and check the flight status + commute time to inform its answer. Partially this will work because Apple is focusing on “personal context awareness” and “on-screen awareness,” which is able to access contacts and apps on your phone that are already filled with your personalized content. Apple says it will also let third-party app-makers tap into this functionality.
Oh, and you'll also be able to type your requests to Siri (so you don't have to embarrass yourself in public).
OpenAI partnership, confirmed: As expected, Apple said it's partnering with OpenAI to infuse ChatGPT into its AI features (both Siri and other apps). If you ask Siri a question and it thinks CGPT is better suited to answer, it'll ask you if it's okay to share your query with CGPT (seems like this could happen a lot?).
Our take: Outsourcing AI is a smart move. Companies have been sinking billions into AI with no way of knowing when (or if) it’ll pay off. Apple also left the door open to integrating other AI services beyond OpenAI at a later date, keeping the company from getting locked into a single provider. By outsourcing some of its AI to ChatGPT, Apple can stay focused on the thing that’s kept it one of the world’s most valuable companies (hardware) without sinking billions into Nvidia chips.
