The next-gen version of Siri will feature a generative AI chatbot, and analysts expect it to launch with iOS 18 , and was announced at this year's WWDC.
While Apple has been criticized for Siri's lagging behind, a new report says it's because the company aims to be much more ambitious than existing generative AI systems …
AppleGPT
Although The company hasn't made any announcements about its work on generative artificial intelligence; a report over the summer said the company had already built its own large language model (LLM) system, called AppleGPT.
The tool in its current form is used only internally, but the report then states that “people familiar with the work believe Apple plans to make a major artificial intelligence-related announcement next year.” . #8221;
While the report generated enough excitement to send AAPL shares soaring, we cautioned at the time that customers shouldn't expect to use Siri's powerful new service anytime soon.
Apple's goals are much more ambitious than ChatGPT
While Apple could launch its own LLM tomorrow, the company is looking to beat systems like ChatGPT in two ways:
- On-device processing.
- Going beyond language processing to include AI -audio and video
On-device processing
Artificial intelligence systems such like ChatGPT, do all their processing on remote servers, but research written by Apple suggests the company has a much more ambitious goal: using on-device processing.
This would have speed and privacy benefits, but Running such services on the limited memory of mobile devices is a huge challenge – and this is believed to be the main reason for how much time the company spends on launch.
We've already seen the company take another small step towards this goal: back in September, the latest Apple Watch models launched standalone Siri.
AI audio and video as well as language
ChatGPT is known as LLM because its core is related to language processing. But Apple's ambitions go beyond this: they are looking to implement artificial intelligence in video and audio processing.
We saw some early signs of this again: AI visual and audio processing can be seen in the Door Detection and “Door Detection” features. Live subtitles.”
The next generation of Siri is expected in iOS 18
The Financial Times reports the expected launch of a much more powerful version of Siri.
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, usually held in June, is expected to be an event at in which the company will unveil its latest operating system, iOS 18. Morgan Stanley analysts expect that the mobile software will be focused on supporting generative artificial intelligence and may include the LLM-powered Siri voice assistant […]
“In terms of the chips in their devices, they are definitely more and more AI-focused in terms of design and architecture,” said Dylan Patel, an analyst at semiconductor consulting firm SemiAnalysis.
This echoes a report published earlier this month by one Apple insider, and Morgan Stanley points to Apple job listings as further evidence.
Almost half of Apple's employees Artificial intelligence job postings now use the term “deep learning,” which refers to the algorithms behind generative artificial intelligence—models that can generate human-like text, audio, and code in seconds.
9to5Mac's Take
Although there is still a lot of speculation, the idea of a major Siri relaunch is a year old seems increasingly plausible.
LLM models such as ChatGPT have completely changed the expectations of what we now expect from artificial intelligence systems. While Apple has been able to point to privacy as a reason why Siri's capabilities remain more limited than competitors that handle large amounts of personal data, we've now reached a point where Siri looks unacceptably stupid. That's about to change, and it's hard to see how Apple can wait any longer than this year.
Using generative AI to power Siri will greatly expand the capabilities of Apple's intelligent assistant. , and on-device processing will allow the company to continue to advertise its privacy credentials. The introduction of video and audio processing gives the company a real chance to convince everyone that the wait was worth it.
Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash
