Apple rolls out AI tools, onboards ChatGPT

Apple Inc. on Monday unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) features that will soon be rolled out on its range of iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

The iPhone maker’s new AI platform, dubbed Apple Intelligence, will be integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, the tech giant said in its Worldwide Developers Conference (WDC) presentation.

“It’s personal, powerful, and private—and it’s integrated into the apps you rely on every day. Introducing Apple Intelligence—our next chapter in AI,” Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Apple Intelligence features will initially work only on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max and any Mac or iPad that is powered by Apple’s M series chips.

Apple also showcased an upgraded and more conversational version of its digital assistant, Siri, which can help users navigate everything from what’s inside the device to retrieving data, summarizing texts, and creating images.

“Powered by Apple Intelligence, Siri becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience. With richer language-understanding capabilities, Siri is more natural, more contextually relevant, and more personal, with the ability to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks,” Apple said.

The Cupertino, California-based company also said that it has tied up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to allow its customers to access the generative AI tool via Siri at no extra cost.

Apple said Siri will be able to tap OpenAI’s chatbot GPT-4o to better respond to user queries, but after seeking the user’s permission.

Apple Intelligence is likely to roll out later this year, but some features such as Siri’s ability to control features within third-party apps may be available only next year.

“Very happy to be partnering with apple to integrate chatgpt into their devices later this year! think you will really like it,” OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman, who was present at the WDC presentation, posted on X.

Investors, however, didn’t seem impressed with the rollout of the new features as Apple shares declined almost 2% in New York on Monday.

Musk warns of ban on Apple

Meanwhile, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, in response to Cook’s post on X, warned that all Apple devices would be banned “from the premises of my companies” if OpenAI is integrated at the operating system level.

“Don’t want it. Either stop this creepy spyware or all Apple devices will be banned from the premises of my companies,” Musk posted on X.

Musk’s reaction came even as Apple sought to highlight its focus on securing customer data with privacy features that it has built into its AI system. It unveiled its Private Cloud Compute feature that will keep users’ data safe when being sent to data centers.

“With Private Cloud Compute, Apple sets a new standard for privacy in AI, with the ability to flex and scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers,” Apple said.

“To run more complex requests that require more processing power, Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of Apple devices into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence,” it added.

Apple also invited developers to test its privacy features.

“Independent experts can inspect the code that runs on Apple silicon servers to verify privacy,” it said, adding that Private Cloud Compute “cryptographically ensures” that iPhone, iPad, and Mac “do not talk to a server unless its software has been publicly logged for inspection.”

The tech giant also rolled out visionOS 2, the latest version of software for its Vision Pro headset.

The company also announced plans to launch the headset globally, with preorders beginning in Hong Kong, Japan, China, and Singapore as soon as Thursday.

The device will go on sale in those regions from 28 June, followed by Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the UK, where preorders start on 28 June.