Apple has tossed one other crumb to investors wondering when the world will get to see some ‘Made in Cupertino’ GenAI: Expect Apple to disclose what it’s been working on on this buzzy slice of artificial intelligence “later this 12 months”, per CEO Tim Cook.
During an earnings call yesterday, Apple’s chief exec emphasized its ongoing investment in AI, alongside other — as he put it — “groundbreaking innovation”, corresponding to the technologies which underpin Apple’s Vision Pro VR/AR headset, saying: “We proceed to spend an amazing amount of effort and time and we’re excited to share the small print of our ongoing work in that space later this 12 months.”
There was no more steer on when exactly Cupertino will pull back the curtain on its AI efforts. But its annual developer confab, WWDC, typically takes place in June — and will definitely be one date to observe for any big reveals here.
Analysts tuned into the decision were inquisitive about “potential upcoming announcements on AI”, and throughout the Q&A bit of the Q1 2024 results call, Cook tickled the hearth of anticipation slightly more, segueing from enthusing about “enterprise opportunities” for Vision Pro to referencing generative AI directly.
“By way of generative AI, which I might guess is your focus, we now have a number of work happening internally, as I’ve alluded to before,” he said. “Our M.O., when you will, has at all times been to do work after which discuss work and never to get out in front of ourselves. And so we’re going to carry that to this as well. But we’ve got some things that we’re incredibly enthusiastic about, that we’ll be talking about later this 12 months. ”
Apple’s senior leadership team was also asked in regards to the level of investments it’s making in AI, given the size of among the bets being made by other tech firms.
Chief financial officer Luca Maestri responded briefly and bullishly — but without putting any figures on the extent of spend — to that one. “We’ve at all times said we are going to never under put money into the business. So we’re making all of the investments which might be obligatory throughout our product development, software development services development,” he said. “So we are going to proceed to take a position in every area of the business — and at the suitable level — and we’re very enthusiastic about what’s in store for us for the remaining of the 12 months.”
The iPhone maker also fielded an issue about edge processing and AI throughout the call, with one other analyst asking if it’s “a believer in the sting thesis that AI and processing on smartphones and devices like yours goes to have an enormous role in AI and AI apps and that it’s something you guys can make the most of”.
Cook wasn’t going to be drawn into tossing anything larger than crumbs (to proceed the metaphor) — but he offered, perhaps, the equivalent of a wink toward the substance of the query, affirming: “Let me just say that I feel there’s an enormous opportunity for apple with Gen AI and and AI — without entering into more details and getting out in front of myself.”
Apple’s long-standing positioning of itself as pro-privacy and pro-user presents each a challenge and a chance relating to generative AI which demands vast amounts of (often personal) data to coach AI models within the hunted for drive for utility.
Nevertheless if Apple can offer users GenAI tools that don’t demand users’ data is uploaded to a 3rd party cloud somewhere, with all of the privacy and security risks that may entail, and as a substitute processing to power the tech may be done locally, on device, it could — potentially — carve itself (and its ecosystem) a differentiating area of interest vs the present data-gobbling market leaders in GenAI. (OpenAI, for example, is now facing a charge its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, breaches Europe’s data protection laws in areas corresponding to AI model training.)
In the case of edge AI, performance will in fact be key. But that is Apple — and finessing products, via its own hardware and software development, is its business — so if anyone has each the rational and resources to drag off development of privacy-conscious GenAI it’s going to be Apple.
