What is the point of having artificial intelligence unless it helps the customer? Apple addresses the question with a people-friendly take on AI. The company is calling it Apple Intelligence, which is an intelligent take on artificial intelligence (both acronyms are AI, get it?!) And it is getting an ecosystem-wide push. The features emanating from Apple Intelligence has privacy at its core and comes with several personalised features.

What we have at the moment: AI tools coming up with inane pictures and writing run-of-mill poetry. Apple has heard you. In Apple universe, it’s about personal intelligence or AI that’s able to understand and process information that matters to you. For example, Apple showcased how its AI can read the calendar, check traffic and come up with a route between your meetings and, if required, draft a message to your contacts to reschedule the meeting. All this usually requires a number of steps and it takes time to complete the entire task. Apple Intelligence can handle this smoothly.

“It has to understand you and be grounded in your personal context like your routine, your relationships, your communications and more. It’s beyond artificial intelligence. It’s personal intelligence,” said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple.

Going by the demonstration that Apple offered, AI would be integrated throughout the operating systems on its Macs, iPads and iPhones, as well as be able to pull information from and take action within apps.

An area where the might of Apple Intelligence will be felt is Siri, which Apple executives promised would feature a “more natural, more contextually relevant and more personal” experience. The new Siri will function as an AI chatbot and receive written instructions, and also has the ability to take actions within apps based on voice prompts.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the annual developer conference event at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino

With the help of Apple Intelligence, the different operating systems from the company will be able to summarize notifications, emails and texts. For example, a group chat around planning a trip can be brought down to a single message that conveys who booked a hotel and when to arrive.

A new image generation tool, meanwhile, allows users to create unique emoji reactions, while its Image Playground feature can create more complex visuals in several different styles.

Improvements are coming across the iPhone software system. This fall, messaging will add the ability to schedule messages and respond to messages by tapping back with more emojis. Apple will also offer a redesigned Photos app to make it easier to browse images by topics like pets and travel.

Don’t confuse Apple Intelligence with ChatGPT

One may say this sounds a bit like Microsoft’s AI assistant Copilot but with Apple, users won’t have to pay extra to activate the AI features.

There’s another aspect to AI and Apple. The company has forged a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT tech. Accessing ChatGPT is not a must and users have to opt-in to take advantage of the chatbot.

Siri will be able to ask ChatGPT questions, tapping into the power of OpenAI’s models but it will ask permission from the user before communicating with it. This will allow for “seamless integration” while ensuring that “you are in control of when ChatGPT is used”, said Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice-president of software engineering.

Apple staying away from Gemini-style chatbots has enough reasons. Google and Microsoft have faced scrutiny over errors made by their AI products in recent months.

Apple’s dive into AI features (though the company has offered several AI features under the term ‘machine learning’ for years) will calm investor concerns that the iPhone maker had slipped behind its rivals.

Once the user decides to take help of ChatGPT, the chatbot can field the request, ensuring Apple is not responsible for the answers. For example, a user may say that there is salmon, lemon and tomatoes at home and dinner needs to be planned around it. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, attended the Apple event but he didn’t take the stage.

Apple brings several strengths to the AI race, the biggest being its semiconductor development team. Apple chips can tackle complex AI functions.

Mathures Paul

(The reporter is in Cupertino on an invitation from Apple, which is taking care of travel and stay)