- Apple has fallen behind competitors in AI and is now investing $1 billion per year to catch up, focusing on products like Siri, Messages, and Apple Music.
- While Apple uses AI in some current offerings, it lacks major generative AI products like ChatGPT that rivals have launched.
- Apple has built internal AI models and its AI strategy is led by execs Giannandrea, Federighi, and Cue. The large investment shows Apple’s urgency around competing in AI.
Apple has fallen behind competitors like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon when it comes to artificial intelligence products and is now racing to catch up. The tech giant is on track to spend $1 billion per year developing its own generative AI capabilities, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Apple’s Current AI Products
While Apple does utilize AI in existing products like Photos and autocorrect, it has yet to launch a generative AI product comparable to ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. The company has built an internal large language model called Ajax and a rumored chatbot known as Apple GPT, but neither are incorporated into consumer products yet.
How Apple Plans to Use AI
Apple is looking to integrate AI into key services like Siri, Messages, and Apple Music. For Apple Music, the company wants to leverage AI to generate personalized playlists in a similar fashion to Spotify’s partnership with OpenAI. Apple is also exploring using AI in its Xcode developer tools to assist app creators.
Apple’s AI Leadership
The Apple executives leading the charge on AI initiatives are John Giannandrea, SVP of machine learning and AI strategy, Craig Federighi, SVP of software engineering, and Eddy Cue, head of services. With this leadership in place, Apple is pushing aggressively into generative AI to catch up with competitors.
The $1 billion per year investment signals Apple’s urgency around staking a bigger claim in the AI space. While the company got a late start compared to others, its vast resources allow Apple to close the gap quickly if it can execute on its AI vision. The race is on to see which tech giants can dominate the future of artificial intelligence.
