For years, Apple has been accused of being one of the biggest soldiers in the AI arms race. Doubts have he argued that Apple’s lack of a clear AI strategy has cost it and Wall Street analysts have worried that gap could start to hurt iPhone sales.
Now, the company has unveiled what it’s billing as its biggest AI launch to date: Siri AI, which builds new automated capabilities (powered by a partnership with Google Gemini) into the very core of its software.
Is it enough to get people to stop saying that Apple is “losing” the AI race?
To be honest, no one really knows. But the question itself may be wrong. A better one might be: are Apple customers actually going to use these features, and if they do, will it help Apple’s business?
Before we tackle that question, we should note that Monday’s announcements were also accompanied by an interesting comment from Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.
“Some seem to be racing forward, seemingly pursuing AI for AI’s sake, with no clear respect for the people — all of us — that it is ultimately meant to serve,” Federighi said during his remarks. “At Apple, our mission has always been to turn the power of advanced technology into useful and intuitive products for everyone.”
The not-so-disguised number shown here seems both a response to Apple’s “behind the AI” criticism and an attempt to acknowledge the deeply ambivalent — and, according to some polls, increasingly negative — the feelings many consumers have about the AI industry. It’s also a shrewd message at a time when Americans worry that artificial intelligence will take their jobs and rot their minds. Apple is positioning itself as the AI company that’s actually on your side.
Judging by Monday’s demos, that position has some substance behind it. Siri can now surface information buried deep in your inbox or text history and bring up useful information and offer useful suggestions based on it. It can use what Apple calls screen awareness to give you context about what you’re seeing. And — using Gemini — it can pull up-to-date information from the web almost instantly and deliver it directly to your device.
Siri is also designed to work seamlessly across all Apple devices, giving users increased flexibility and, like other AI chatbots, saves conversation histories so users can revisit previous conversations.
By building artificial intelligence functions into its disembodied, ethereal assistant, Apple also has the chance to enjoy the advantages of competitors whose apps can only reach users through its own App Store. For these competitors, Apple’s embedded artificial intelligence at the operating system level is a significant threat to their distribution advantage.
The key word here is “potential,” as this version of Siri won’t be available to consumers until later this year, as a beta.
The final verdict will have to wait, but what’s already clear is that Apple is doing its best to engage its audience — either end up doing it or not. Apple is obviously a hardware company, and these updates are designed to make that hardware progressively friendlier and more convenient, keeping users glued to their devices just a little longer.
The contrast with its competitors is instructive, and perhaps the most important message in Monday’s announcements for anyone watching where the AI industry is really headed. Take OpenAI, which, despite shipping updates at a relentless pace, has struggled to determine who it’s actually selling to, oscillating between consumers and businesses. Or Meta, which is throwing huge sums at AI without a clear explanation of how it connects to the company basic advertising business.
Apple’s more measured approach is starting to look optimal by comparison — and sounder financially. For the most part, Apple didn’t need a gangbusters AI strategy. It posted historic iPhone sales last quarter. And as questions mount over AI profitability and in real utility, Apple spends significantly less than its competitors — approx $14 billion in market capitalization planned this year, against cumulative 900 billion dollars is being held back by other tech giants — while still earning huge amounts of revenue. This revenue comes from the AI industry itself via taxes on artificial intelligence companies that use the App Store for their app platform.
In short, Apple spends less, earns more, and has now released a suite of AI features that—for many iPhone users—will be indistinguishable from the other AI apps already available to them through the App Store. If that doesn’t exactly count as “winning the AI race,” it might be the smartest way to run it.
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