Apple has been on the back foot on voice and AI assistants ever since the launch of SIRI. However, a proposed partnership between the company and Open AI may be looking to rectify that path.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is close to agreeing with the AI company to incorporate the features of ChatGPT into its upcoming iOS 18 later this year. Chinese phone maker Transsion already has a similar arrangement where it uses ChatGPT on its devices.
The deal between OpenAI and Apple would make the artificial intelligence chatbot, “AppleGPT”, a part of the suite of AI tools that Apple plans to incorporate on its devices in the new software versions. The specifics for the integration were however not provided.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, who has previously expressed caution on the use of AI tools also indicated that he regularly uses ChatGPT, but several issues need to be addressed. The company has previously indicated to have been in talks about Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot but not much has come of it.
This information comes ahead of Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference next month. It’s anticipated that the company will unveil many AI-powered features destined for iOS 18, that would run on Apple’s silicon. It remains to be seen if the integration would cross over to Apple’s macOS 15 and watchOS 11.
Not much is known about the new OS however multiple generative AI-powered features and capabilities are expected to be infused into the system including a revamped Siri.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has said Apple is on course to spend over $1 billion a year on AI research and development. Apple is racing to catch up with competitors Google and OpenAI. Apple put a software development freeze on new software to focus on perfecting the existing software.
AI chatbots are now a popular trend and it’s expected that Apple will incorporate similar capabilities in its devices to take advantage of the tech trend.
