AI = 🍎 Apple Intelligence?

Apple has long used artificial intelligence (the OG AI) in its products, including the occasionally competent Siri, health monitoring, facial recognition, and photography.

However, with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, Apple users quickly recognized how far behind Apple was with their generative AI capabilities. Here is how Apple plans to catch up and what it means for your business.

What is Apple Intelligence?

The big news is that Apple is building generative AI services into supported devices. Here are the new AI capabilities that support the following:

• Languages - Apple offers a new feature called Writing Tools that will help you with grammatical improvements and even recommend rewrites. When you open documents, Apple will offer up summaries.
• Images - Using Apple's new Magic Wand, you can generate images in a document. You can even generate new emojis using Apple's new Genmoji feature.
• Action(s) - Siri is now more intelligent, understanding more about what you do based on emails, messages, app use, and more. Siri can also take action, such as crafting messages, improving photos, and more.

Since Apple Intelligence is built into the operating system, Apple hopes to enable many of these features without app developers' intervention. As developers find new and unique ways to allow AI into their products, they can build upon what Apple already provides.

Is Apple Intelligence safe?

Apple has built a strong trust relationship with its users by offering end-to-end encryption, managing as much of your data on-device as possible, and promising that even if you have data in iCloud, Apple cannot see it. Apple appears to be saying the right things with its new Apple Intelligence service.

The new AI features will do as much as they can on-device, sort of like a miniature ChatGPT in your iPhone, Mac, or iPad. However, there will be times when your device does not have all the answers, so Apple built a new service called Private Cloud Compute.

When your device cannot complete a specific task on its own, the operating system communicates securely with Apple's Private Cloud Compute infrastructure. Apple is making some big differentiating claims here, such as:

• Your data is encrypted end-to-end
• Once data sent to Private Cloud Compute has been processed, it is immediately removed and cannot be retrieved
• Apple will not harvest your data to improve training
• Security researchers will be asked to test the veracity of Apple's claims. There is a bug bounty program for any security issues researchers may find

It seems Apple is going to great lengths to ensure your data is yours and is not viewed by anyone other than you. That is good for you and your business. However...

Enter ChatGPT Integration

There are times when Apple Intelligence does not have all the answers or skills you may require. In those situations, Apple has partnered with OpenAI to offer you access to ChatGPT.

From what I have heard, Apple will require you to approve using ChatGPT before that handoff occurs. If and when you allow Apple Intelligence to access ChatGPT, your IP address (the thing that makes you identifiable on the Internet) will not be shared with OpenAI. That said, if you are a ChatGPT paid subscriber, you can use those features, so it is unclear if Apple is protecting that communication.

Apple claims it wants to offer more so-called AI models, so over time, if you prefer to use Microsoft Co-pilot, Claude, Mistral, etc., that will likely be available.

How will Apple Intelligence improve my business?

Overall, there are some exciting opportunities here. I see Apple's initial effort at generative AI as catching up with other AI solutions in the marketplace but setting a higher bar for security and privacy.

Initially, you will probably see many quality-of-life improvements, such as improving your writing, taking action on important decisions, and streamlining your work.

Of course, let's not forget those Genmojis that will suck away everyone's productivity and be guaranteed no one will ever admit to it.

What does the future hold?

Apple is traditionally very quiet with its product roadmap, and you can see that this Apple Intelligence release will be the first step in the company's journey. The limited number of products supporting Apple Intelligence gives us a little insight into the future.

My first prediction already happened: Apple shareholders are quite happy with this new announcement. Why? Not only is Apple Intelligence putting Apple in the AI race, but it will likely spur a massive upgrade cycle.

📰 Per Reuters, June 12, 2024: "AI-powered Apple overtakes Microsoft as world's most valuable company"

If you want Apple Intelligence, you must have an M-Series chip (no Intel or A-series chips inside) on your Mac or iPad. The iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max are the only iPhones that will get Apple Intelligence. Coincidentally (or not), those are the most current iPhones on the market as of this writing.

I do not expect people to ditch their ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, Gemini, Mistral, etc. subscriptions. Still, perhaps that usage drops a little as people find they can do similar activities with Apple Intelligence.

Developers might be the most excited about these new AI features. Apple Intelligence is baked into Xcode, a popular product for creating apps and games for Apple's operating systems. Apple's popular Swift programming language is packed with powerful new features, and Apple Intelligence will help them develop apps faster.

What about pricing?

So far, I do not believe Apple has signaled a pricing requirement for Apple Intelligence. If I were to make an uninformed guess, on-device services would be free for anyone using a compatible device.

However, Apple is getting into the costly game of building a custom AI infrastructure, so this writer can only assume Apple Intelligence will be chipping away at his monthly income in the form of a new monthly payment.

Want to learn more?

Apple created a landing page demonstrating Apple Intelligence and providing more features and capabilities than I cover in this article.