Apple’s relationship with artificial intelligence is bittersweet these days. Siri’s debut with the launch of the iPhone 4S alongside iOS 5 12 years ago put the Cupertino company at the forefront of artificial intelligence-based digital assistants. The answers did not take long: Google Now (2012), preceding the current Google Assistant (2016), Microsoft Cortana (2014), Amazon Alexa (2014) and Samsung Bixby (2017), in addition to similar but platform-independent services followed suit , which was abandoned by Apple.

However, and while Siri has received some improvements since its launch, such as the ability to handle certain operations locally, we’ve seen other assistants like Google and Amazon move faster and today they offer a more complete and therefore better user experience. And we are talking exclusively about digital assistants, because if we talk about other functions and services based on artificial intelligence, the difference is overwhelming and leaves Apple practically insignificant in this regard. It is even more paradoxical to know that at the beginning of the year there was an internal event (only for employees) during which the matter was raised.

However, it appears to be in Cupertino they saw that they were neglecting a particularly relevant technological area currently and subsequently started the process of actively searching for artificial intelligence professionals, we understand that in order to make a quantitative and qualitative leap in this regard, given that in its current state it has enough room for improvement in several areas, which can take an example from what its main competitors are doing. We got the first hint of this last July when we learned they were working on their first LLM, internally called Apple GPT.

After a process of finding experts in the field, it seems that the machine is already in motion, because according to Mark Gurman in his weekly publication PowerOn, Apple is preparing a wave of AI-based features to be released in 2024. A plan in which Apple’s GPT plays a key role and aims to have more reach than originally thought last July.

The priority in this regard, according to Gurman and his sources, would be to in Siri, which, as I mentioned earlier, has been in need of significant improvement for some time, in which the generative model can make a significant contribution. On the other hand, they also seem to have focused on iOS 18although in this sense they are still working to identify all those elements of the operating system in which artificial intelligence can represent an improvement.

There is more, they are also studying the possibility according to their sources add generative features in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, Apple’s productivity app, something we’ve seen both Google and Microsoft do in their productivity platforms. And according to another example from third parties Apple GPT could also come to Apple Musicwhere it can make it possible to offer smart and personalized playlist features based on artificial intelligence.