Siri with ChatGPT a Modest Win for OpenAI, Apple Intelligence is Limited But Useful
Practical AI is on its way to iPhone, by only 15 and later models.
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) has been somewhat disappointing in recent years. The company always seemed a bit astray from the cultural zeitgeist and more focused on feature extensions than innovation. WWDC 2024 also leaned heavily on feature enhancements, but it also hit the zeitgeist much better than in past years.
There is a gap between AI interest among enterprises and everyday consumer AI use. Apple is looking to fill that gap with “AI for the rest of us.”
“This is AI for the rest of us, personal intelligence you can rely on at work, home, and everywhere in between.” Craig Frederighi, Apple
Apple figured out great market positioning for its AI strategy. It doesn’t have to be a world-leading innovator in AI research or advances. Instead, Apple can start by integrating AI into everyday activities. This will help consumers accumulate a lot of small AI wins while enterprises swing for the fences. Still, the features are more limited than they might appear. There are no opportunities for big wins among Apple users since the features are significantly constrained…for now.
Then again, this may be much ado about too little. The long lists of new Apple Intelligence features will only be made available starting from iPhone 15. There is likely some dependency on Apple silicon, but this is going to make many existing users unhappy. They will think it is a trick to entice users into upgrading their phones more frequently.
OpenAI understood that consumer reach and everyday use cases were its Achilles heel. Google has a significant advantage in these areas. By becoming incorporated into Siri and presumably further enhancing the ChatGPT mobile app, OpenAI is attempting to solidify its early lead among consumers while also supporting novel activities that consumers wind up using smartphones for every day.
Apple’s Key AI Announcements
Nearly everything AI at WWDC was baked into Apple Intelligence. It should be made clear that none of this will be available until the fall when the beta is released. In addition, it is unclear whether older iPhone models will support Apple Intelligence. Access may require an upgrade.
Writing support - The stuff of all generative AI solutions, Apple will enable access to on-device generative AI-enabled writing assistants across Mail, Notes, Messages, and other apps. So, in many ways, this is just Apple beginning to catch up nearly two years after the launch of ChatGPT. This feature, by the way, does rely on OpenAI models.
Create images - There are many image generation options, including the new Genmoji and an image generator that is limited to sketch, illustration, and animation styles. This is also a positive step and is likely to be employed a lot by users, but it is also considerably behind other options.
Image search and dditing - Users will soon be able to search for their photos with natural language that takes into account the image content. They will also be able to add or remove elements from photos. Again, this is another set of practical use cases for consumers.
Type to Siri - This is the most overlooked and significant of Siri’s new features. As Siri becomes more capable, the incidence of requests that will be better suited to typing will rise. Text chats with Siri are a very welcome addition to the feature set.
App training / help - Ask Siri questions about how to use an app for a particular use case, and step-by-step instructions will be returned.
Context maintenance - This will happen within Siri conversations and is long overdue. Rival voice assistants have had this for more than six years.
Personal Context - This is new and largely novel among voice assistants. Grounding is simply personalizing the user experience based on what information exists in other apps.
Screen awareness - Siri will be able to identify information on the user’s screen and take actions related to it.
Actions in and across apps - Siri is the original “Do Engine.” While ChatGPT knows many things, it can do few things outside the knowledge domain. Siri has always been about taking action, but it never knew much. So combining the two capabilities in a logical pairing.
Third-party apps get native generative AI - Developers will also get access to APIs so their apps can take advantage of the features. However, these are limited to the writing API, presumably from OpenAI, the Image Playground, and Genmoji.
The more controversial element - App Intents are a critical way for users to leverage generative AI through Siri. However, there are only a handful of use cases supported, such as search and integrations with email, photos, and videos. If generative AI doesn’t work, Siri shortcuts might be able to fulfill the request.
This list was underwhelming from the perspective of providing an open and flexible set of generative AI-based services. At the same time, it is strong from the perspective of dozens of incremental benefits to user experience.
The Good and Bad for OpenAI
The Apple alliance is useful for OpenAI and may even be critical to its competitive positioning. However, the “partnership” appeared to be very thin. There are some legitimate positive and negative elements from OpenAI’s perspective.
Positive
Access and relevance
Blocked Google from that role
Potential for access to everyday activities
Wider use of OpenAI’s API for search, text, and images
Negative
Siri decides when to call ChatGPT
The deal is not exclusive
The fact that Siri acts as an intermediary between the user and ChatGPT is not necessarily a good strategy. This means that Siri has total control over the conversation. Eventually, that will create issues where additional Siri upgrades are available only for the wealthy people who upgrade their phones frequently.
Apple’s Craig Frederighi also indicated, “We also intend to add support for other AI models in the future.” This seems to confirm that the OpenAI deal is not exclusive. You might see Gemini or Claude holding a similar position as OpenAI later this year. You are almost certain to see a new Apple-developed model. OpenAI may have got to the table first, but they will not be the least to eat off the Apple table.
Still, this is a big win for OpenAI. The benefits are likely to be more promotional than deeply substantive, but OpenAI kept Google from some generative AI use cases on the most important mobile platform. If OpenAI still fancies itself as a consumer-oriented business, then the deal with Microsoft is the first of several steps it is likely to make over the next two months.
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