During the Q4 earnings call with investors, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded to the notion that the company was lagging behind in AI. He emphasized that Apple had made significant technological advancements that “would not be possible without AI.” Cook pointed to recent developments like the iOS 17 features, including Personal Voice and Live Voicemail, as examples of their innovations in AI technologies. He also confirmed that Apple was actively working on generative AI technologies.
Cook’s mention of these features highlights that Apple might not necessarily label them as AI in consumer-facing terms. Instead, they focus on communicating the consumer benefits of these technologies while acknowledging that the underlying foundation is AI and machine learning.
Personal Voice, for example, is an accessibility feature designed to create an automated voice that sounds like you. It’s intended for people who are losing their speaking ability due to various health conditions, including ALS. To use the feature, people first spend 15 minutes reading text prompts into the device’s microphone. Then, using machine learning technologies, the audio is processed locally on their iPhone, iPad or Mac to create their own Personal Voice that sounds like them.
Live Voicemail, meanwhile, is a new consumer-facing feature in iOS 17 that displays a live transcription of a voicemail as it’s being recorded in real time.
“AI is at the heart of these features,” Cook told investors. “And then, you can go all the way to the lifesaving features on the watch and the phone like fall detection, crash detection, ECG on the watch. These would not be possible without AI,” he noted.
The Apple exec also confirmed that the company was developing generative AI technologies, saying “obviously, we have work going on.” But he declined to share details, noting that Apple doesn’t really do that. the Q4 earnings
“But you can bet that we’re investing, we’re investing quite a bit, we’re going to do it responsibly and it will — you will see product advancements over time where those technologies are at the heart of them,” Cook added.
Apple, however, seems to have some catching up to do in terms of consumer-facing AI technologies, which have gained attention in recent months thanks to launches of tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and others from companies like Anthropic and Google.
The company has been said to be expanding its budget for building AI to “millions of dollars a day,” according to The Information, and is employing multiple teams working on LLMs (large language models) as it attempts to put the tech to use. The hope is that one day users would be able to automate tasks via Siri, which today have to be manually programmed, for example via the Shortcuts app. In addition, Siri could gain new AI skills, like being told to turn the last few photos a user has taken on their iPhone and text it to a friend, the report said.