Three Advantages Apple Intelligence Has Over Its AI Competitors

The first Apple Intelligence features will launch next week with iOS 18.1, and beta testers are already getting access to the second wave in iOS 18.2. I've been using many of these AI features on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac since July. Here are three advantages Apple Intelligence has over its AI competitors.

#1: Tapping into Existing Apps and Features

Apple is a product company. Its AI competitors have tried to become product companies, with varying degrees of success.

I'm a big fan of Apple Intelligence's motto: “AI for all of us,” because I think it's true.

Apple Intelligence is built into existing apps, features, and devices that millions and millions of people use every day.

That's a hard advantage to beat.

Here are examples of Apple Intelligence features that demonstrate what I mean:

Everyone gets notifications, and dashboards make them better
We all love emoji, and Genmoji offers a fun take on the feature.
Millions of people rely on Siri, and it’s finally getting better.
Email inboxes can be cluttered, so Priority Mail is in order.
Photos is a key app, and it’s getting three AI updates.

Most of Apple’s competitors are trying to create new AI capabilities that require some level of training, or at least getting used to.

Apple’s intelligence is built into existing habits and tools we all rely on. That’s what makes it unique.

#2: Integrating the Best of the AI Competitors.

Here's a key advantage Apple Intelligence has over its competitors: It integrates some of its best competitors, and the exchange isn't reciprocal.

In iOS 18.2, ChatGPT is built into Siri and Apple's own writing tools.

In essence, one of Apple Intelligence's main competitors is giving Apple all of its intelligence.

You can send your Siri requests directly to ChatGPT, bypassing permission requests entirely, giving you the best of both companies' AI tools in one package.

Visual Intelligence similarly integrates not only ChatGPT, but Google Image Search as well. And there's a good chance Google Gemini will be fully integrated into Apple Intelligence in the future.

Apple, meanwhile, isn't sharing its Apple Intelligence tech with these other companies.

Clearly, there are mutual benefits for each company. But from a user perspective, only Apple Intelligence offers the AI of Apple and its competitors.

#3: Protecting User Privacy

I'm not saying that other AI companies are bad guys who want to trample on user privacy. But Apple Intelligence has privacy principles that its competitors simply don't have.

Apple bets on AI tasks by performing processing on-device. This means that the data used for AI notification summaries, object removal in photos, and more will remain on your device. Only someone who physically gains access to your device will have access to this data.

Top comment from Burner account

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I'm not sure I'd even call other AI companies competitors. Apple's improvements to their apps are very small, personal, but also something you can use on a daily basis. Chat GPT and Copilot are aimed at something completely different.

Microsoft uses its business apps to use AI in enterprise environments to automate tedious or complex tasks.

ChatGPT can be licensed as a secure/private version that a company can use even with sensitive corporate information (we have one at work).

I think we're still learning what AI means, and will eventually stop lumping the term into every new idea or feature that comes out. Maybe we'll develop more terms that better describe what we're trying to automate/generate.

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And then there's Private Cloud Compute. Apple has a very detailed research paper that lays out everything PCC can do. But at its core, Apple has created an innovative way to run AI tasks in the cloud that, in theory, offers the same privacy protections as local tasks.

You can read more about Apple Intelligence and privacy here, and details on how privacy works with the ChatGPT integration here.

Apple Intelligence Advantages: A Wrap-Up

Much has been said about Apple “being behind” when it comes to AI. Whether that’s true or not, Apple clearly has several key advantages with Apple Intelligence that could help it outpace its competitors soon. We’re only just getting started with Apple Intelligence, but the future looks bright.

How do you see Apple Intelligence stacking up against its competitors? Let us know in the comments.