Siri icon
Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
- Apple could finally give Siri the much-needed generative AI boost.
- The company also plans to infuse AI into Apple Music and other productivity apps.
In the world of digital assistants, Apple’s Siri is perhaps the weakest one you can find. While Google Assistant, Microsoft Bing, and Amazon Alexa have their shortcomings, they are still leaps ahead of Siri when it comes to information look-up, contextual answers, and the sheer number of features. Apple has also largely remained a spectator in the generative AI space, while the likes of Google and Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon pretty early. But now, it seems Apple is scrambling to join the AI revolution that was brought on ChatGPT.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is dedicating major resources to equip its products and services with generative AI. Siri, Apple’s long-term problematic assistant on iPhones, will be one such service Apple intends to makeover with the help of its conversational AI.
Gurman reports that the top brass at Apple, including senior vice presidents in charge of AI and software engineering, John Giannandrea and Craig Federighi, are leading the company’s generative AI efforts. Eddy Cue, the head of Apple services, is also reportedly looped into the process. The company is said to be on track to spend $1 billion a year on its AI efforts.
Siri will reportedly get a complete revamp with a deep generative AI integration. The new and improved version of Siri could be ready as soon as 2025, which means we might get a glimpse of it on the iPhone 16 series. In its smarter avatar, Siri could better compete with Google’s newly announced Assistant with Bard. However, we can’t say that for sure since there’s no information on all the tasks Siri will be able to accomplish with the help of generative AI.
Apple Music is also expected to get the AI boost. The company is planning to add features like auto-generated playlists, similar to what Spotify rolled out earlier this year.
Other Apple productivity apps are also expected to get features running on the company’s large language model. Details on those are scarce, but Gurman reports that Cue’s team is exploring how generative AI can help people write better in apps like Pages or auto-create slide decks in Keynote.
