It is completely clear that Apple has to respond to the trend towards generative AI with iOS 18, which is due to be presented in the summer – especially since CEO Tim Cook has already made public hints to this effect. Now there are details about the background considerations. Accordingly, Apple is not only relying on its own technology, but is also considering purchasing it – from big names in the industry, including Google and OpenAI.
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Like Microsoft before?
Such a strategy would not be new, as Microsoft's AI approach is based on feeding its Copilot technology with OpenAI LLMs plus image generators. Nevertheless, one would have expected Apple to have its own approach. As the financial news agency Bloomberg reported on Monday morning, talks are still ongoing with Google to use Gemini for some AI functions in the iPhone. This is said to have been reported by informed circles. Accordingly, a kind of expansion of the search partnership with the Internet giant is being considered. Apple is already paying billions to be the main search engine on the iPhone and other devices from the manufacturer.
There are currently “active negotiations” underway to use Google’s generative AI models at Apple. The group also “recently” spoke to OpenAI about the use of their models. However, these discussions were apparently initially broken off. If there is a contract with Google, it would probably be announced at the Apple developer conference WWDC in June. However, it is still possible that Apple will look for another partner; in addition to OpenAI, Anthropic and its chatbot Claude would also be conceivable.
Apple GPT is also still available
Apple is said to have been testing its own large language models since at least the beginning of 2023. The project with the code name Ajax or Apple GPT is said to have already been tested internally. However, it is still inferior to the competition's existing systems, which is why Apple is thinking about a partnership. The construction site is big: the hated voice assistant Siri finally has to get better, and generative AI should also end up in iWork programs such as Pages, Keynote or Numbers.
However, Gemini had recently made negative headlines. Although Google's large language model is said to beat OpenAI's current ChatGPT 4 in many benchmarks, the application showed strange bias problems. For example, Wehrmacht soldiers with African and Asian backgrounds were created using an image generator.
(bsc)