Apple announced its new artificial intelligence service and a refreshed look for its Siri voice assistant in June, with plans to begin testing later this year. But some features likely won’t arrive until next year, according to a new report.
The company’s upcoming Apple Intelligence service promises a host of new features when it enters testing later this year, including a refreshed look, more intuitive voice controls, and integration with OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT. New reporting from Bloomberg on Sunday gives more details on the timing of the launch, saying that Apple plans to offer Siri’s new look and ChatGPT integrations later this year. Siri’s new abilities to control apps with your voice and understand what you’re looking at on the screen won’t arrive until next year.
“Neither upgrade will be ready when Apple Intelligence launches this fall,” Bloomberg wrote.
Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Apple has taken a more conservative approach to launching AI services than other tech giants. Companies like Microsoft, Google-owned Alphabet, Facebook-owned Meta and OpenAI have rushed to release new features, which has stoked consumer interest. Unfortunately, some new products have launched with decidedly mixed results.
Google has perhaps garnered the most attention by adding what it calls AI Overviews summaries to its search results. The new feature, which debuted in May, almost immediately began spreading racist conspiracy theories and dangerous health advice, such as recommending people eat rocks or put glue on pizza to preserve the cheese. After user posts about Google’s embarrassing results went viral, the company said it would delay the feature’s launch, though some publications have still found it to be spreading misinformation since then.
Apple executives said their approach is based on efforts to ensure transparency about content created or edited by AI, among other things. Apple has also said it wants to ensure user privacy, in a move seen as a direct criticism of colleagues who have warned users that Data their AI touches can be used to train the technology.
Whether Apple’s approach will win over consumers, or potentially change the tech industry’s approach to AI, is uncertain. But it underscores some of the key questions about the impact of artificial intelligence.
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Last month, for example, Google researchers published a 29-page report warning that humans using AI to flood the internet with “low-quality, spammy, and malicious synthetic content” could fuel distrust of all digital information. The result would essentially be that AI “clutter” would undermine our shared understanding of reality.
Apple hopes to circumvent many of these problems with narrowly focused AI features, such as how to identify plans being made in an email, or how to automatically summarize a long text message chain between friends. The company’s executives have marketed Apple Intelligence as a tool to “make your most personal products even more useful and fun.”
So far, investors have been positive about the company’s approach, pushing Apple’s stock to more than $3.4 trillion, the highest it’s ever been.
The Bloomberg report also included updates on Apple’s smartwatch plans.
