APPLE'S GENIUS PLAY: REWRITING THE AI NARRATIVE WITH "APPLE INTELLIGENCE"

Amid the revolutionary swirl of silicon, the ‘real’ realignment has come in the form of Apple’s approach to artificial intelligence (AI), an intriguing and sometimes opaque mix of technological innovation, strategic silence and Serenity Prayer-worthy trial-and-error that, to the shock of onlookers, involves little or no direct reference to ‘AI’. While other high-profile players are busy boasting about their AI achievements, Apple has been quietly embedding advanced machine learning into the heart of its products, in many cases without its users even noticing; while keeping a watchful eye on privacy and user security. Under this microscope, it’s clear that the distinctive Apple-way of integrating AI without fanfare into products such as the Photos app, Siri and the Apple Watch isn’t just a matter of ‘I’ll do it my way’ (or: ‘we’ll do it our way’) but rather: ‘I’ll do it my way and I’ll embed [innovative AI] as a way to enhance productivity and creativity for those who value privacy.’ Here’s how Apple is recalibrating the ‘AI’ conversation, and what this really means for making a ‘silent revolution’ in the world of ‘artificial’ intelligence.

THE DISCREET TITAN OF AI INNOVATION

Apple’s foray into AI is subterranean, but deep. Under the leadership of top executives including Craig Federighi and Eddie Cue, it made a huge commitment to AI tech, embedding sophisticated machine learning that would augment much of what it offered without fanfare. Its lack of fanfare is in line with Apple’s axiom of leading with action rather than words, embedding machine learning into products such as voice assistant Siri to make end-user experience better, with the highest possible regard for exacting privacy standards.

NAVIGATING THE AI REVOLUTION THE APPLE WAY

This shift in tech and the subsequent seismic advancements in generative AI (including a marquee debut with ChatGPT) moved a whole section of the global technology landscape to do the scramble dance, while Apple was deliberate in pulling its AI expertise off roadmaps like autonomous cars and applying it towards new generative AI goals. On 6 June 2023 Apple demonstrated its game plan for gen-AI at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, with a keynote that literally emphasised its focus on products but critically laid out an incremental approach to adopting gen AI innovatively and responsibly, while ensuring user trust and security.

BEYOND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ENTER APPLE INTELLIGENCE

At a moment when AI of the first kind inspires both awe and anxiety, Apple made the conscious decision to form a new kind of tech space, and to call it ‘Apple Intelligence’. As its new name implies, Apple seems determined to distance its approach from the scary, dystopian aspects of AI and instead to concentrate on how it can use AI to improve productivity and creativity in ways that make sense to people’s lives, Apple-style. This is AI, Apple’s way.

APPLE INTELLIGENCE: POWERING THE FUTURE OF PRODUCTIVITY

At WWDC, Apple signalled the company’s effort to put gen AI into the hands of the lay consumer. Apple will make it possible for you to have someone ‘read’ your text and summarise it, fill up your inbox, improve the searchability of your photos, and compose your personalised emails. AI is getting infused into everything you might do with your tech, on a daily basis. Apple is the centre of the movement to democratise AI.

SIRI: A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE OF PERSONAL ASSISTING

The clearest and perhaps most tantalising indication of the future that Apple Intelligence might eventually create lies in Apple’s vision for the next version of Siri, the personal assistant software for iPhone and iPads. Versions of Siri already continue many conversations when interrupted, or respond with smart-sounding answers to natural-sounding questions. But Apple is promising that within a year or so, Siri will begin executing multiple-app tasks on command. This might mean something as simple as asking Siri to change your cooking time and turn on your oven, all dictated in a single voice command and executed throughout an app. In many ways, this would be the most impressive Apple Intelligence advance yet: a digital agent that finally breaks out of the constraints of individual programs and learns to operate across multiple applications to serve the human user’s needs. This would be a digital voice that truly anticipates what you want before you even have to ask for it.

THE ETHOS BEHIND THE INNOVATION

Ultimately, this is the essence of Apple’s approach to AI, or perhaps I should say Apple Intelligence – one where the overriding ethos is focused on user privacy and security, and on improving the experience as the premier objective in everything Apple does. Apple’s approach to AI is all about its ecosystem, its philosophy and its culture. These tools and technologies bestow great power upon our lives, but so long as Apple sets the parameters, it will never be power at the expense of humanity. If this is what AI is going to be, then I’m perfectly comfortable with Apple representing it.

REFLECTING ON APPLE'S JOURNEY IN AI

With the Ring video doorbell, we will get to see a loser: a loud one. With Apple, we’ve seen a quiet new kind of AI titan who’s re-scripting the AI story for the better: more sober, safer and focused on user innovation. What a better picture of the future of AI than the one that Apple shows us – with its track record of building technology for the sake of its users in mind? Just like with iPod-to-iPhone, Apple-doubling down on data is a sign of a legacy company not just adapting to times, but rewriting them for themselves – always with the user in mind.