Siri in iOS 18 is rumored to be “more conversational and versatile” thanks to AI
With Apple’s WWDC 2024 event and its accompanying iOS 18 reveal fast approaching, speculation is increasing about what kind of AI features Apple might introduce – and a new report gives us a few more key clues.
This report comes from the New York Times (through MacRumors), and says that an upgraded version of Siri will take center stage in iOS 18. Efforts to make Siri a more competent competitor to ChatGPT have apparently been going on for over a year.
The new and improved Siri will be “more conversational and versatile” according to the NYT – and will be better at keeping chats going, rather than answering one question at a time. It is said that Apple shifted additional resources to the development of Siri, which was one of the reasons why the Apple Car was abandoned.
However, the report says that Siri won’t compete directly with the ChatGPT chatbot: instead, it will get better at what it already does, including timers, calendar events, and lists. The digital assistant will also be able to summarize text messages (which we’ve heard hints about before).
AI ins and outs
Here’s Apple’s AI strategy: A) On-device LLM (in-house) B) Cloud-powered LLM (in-house) C) Chatbot (definitely OpenAI, Google maybe). Apple does not build its own chatbot, but knows that the market wants this, so it goes elsewhere for it. It’s the same playbook as search. https://t.co/XQrv57jylYMay 12, 2024
It’s getting a little tricky to sift through all the different AI-related Apple rumors we’re hearing leading up to the Worldwide Developers Conference. All we know for sure is that Apple is excited about AI and has some major announcements in store.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, one of the more reliable Apple tipsters, has done just that posted on social media on how these upgrades will work: Apple is developing its own internal LLMs (Large Language Models) for local work on the device and for cloud processing, Gurman says.
Then it will integrate a third-party chatbot into its software: ChatGPT from OpenAI or Google Gemini, as we have already heard. Gurman says “it’s the same playbook as search” – so while Siri can search the web, Apple has a partnership with Google to do the actual searching. Expect something similar with AI.
There’s quite a bit of overlap there, because if Apple develops its own LLMs, it won’t necessarily need additional help from OpenAI or Google – so it’s not exactly certain where one service will start and the other will end. Hopefully everything will become clear at WWDC 2024, which starts on June 10.