Apple doubles down on artificial intelligence, announcing partnership with OpenAI
Apple is going all-in with artificial intelligence, announcing several new AI features and a partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The company announced the deal at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday afternoon.
The highly anticipated AI partnership is the first of its kind for Apple, which has been regarded by analysts as slower to adopt artificial intelligence than other technology companies such as Microsoft and Google.
The deal allows Apple’s millions of users to access technology from OpenAI, one of the highest-profile artificial intelligence companies of recent years. OpenAI has already established partnerships with a variety of technology and publishing companies, including a multibillion-dollar deal with Microsoft.
OpenAI will be integrated into Apple’s digital assistant Siri, Apple software chief Craig Federighi said during the conference. That would allow people to ask for help with things like recipe ideas, room decorations or composing a story, Federighi said.
“Suppose you want to create a custom bedtime story for your six-year-old who loves butterflies and solving riddles,” Federighi said. “Put in your initial idea, and send to ChatGPT.”
The announcement comes as AI has experienced explosive growth, and some embarrassing setbacks. Chatbots and AI assistants have been beset with issues including hallucinations, plagiarism and incorrect or biased results. OpenAI itself has been embroiled in allegations of copying actor Scartlett Johansson’s voice without her permission.
Apple is also at the center of an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and 15 states. The government accuses Apple of abusing its power as a monopoly to push out rivals and keep customers using its products. It’s unclear how Apple’s new partnership with OpenAI could play into this case.
Shortly after Apple’s announcement, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, “very happy to be partnering with apple to integrate chatgpt into their devices later this year! think you will really like it.”
Apple is also rolling out what it calls Apple Intelligence, its term for Apple's own new generative AI software.
Apple Intelligence will enable transcription for phone calls, AI photo retouching and improvements in the natural conversation flow with Siri, the company said. The software can also be used to summarize notifications and text messages, as well as articles, documents and open web pages.
Federighi placed an emphasis on privacy, with a new system called Private Cloud Compute that he said will ensure data security for users.
Apple says the new features will be released later this year.
Transcript
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Apple's digital assistant Siri may soon have a lot more to say.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Yes, Siri is now getting revamped with ChatGPT, part of a major deal the company announced yesterday.
SCHMITZ: NPR's tech correspondent Dara Kerr has been following the news and is here to talk about it. Good morning, Dara.
DARA KERR, BYLINE: Good morning.
SCHMITZ: So, Dara, tell us about what Apple has announced.
KERR: So every year, Apple has this big developer conference, and mostly it's for tech insiders. But a lot of people were watching yesterday. And that's because it was rumored that Apple was going to announce a partnership with OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT. And at the very end of its nearly two-hour-long keynote, that announcement came.
SCHMITZ: And why is that significant? What difference will this make for, say, the average, you know, iPhone user?
KERR: Yeah, so with Siri now, you can ask it questions, and it'll point you where to find answers on the web. But when it gets integrated with ChatGPT, we'll have OpenAI's technology and be able to scrape the web and form its own answers. So if you ask it something like how to make a Philly cheesesteak, it will search recipes all over the web and come back with its own ingredient list and cooking instructions. And like ChatGPT, Siri will also be able to compose essays or stories. Here's how Apple software chief Craig Federighi explains it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CRAIG FEDERIGHI: Suppose you want to create a custom bedtime story for your 6-year-old, who loves butterflies and solving riddles. Put in your initial idea and send it to ChatGPT to get something back she'll love.
SCHMITZ: I think the jury's out on how many 6-year-olds would love a ChatGPT-inspired story, but it seems like...
KERR: Yeah (laughter).
SCHMITZ: ...We are hearing about the evolution of AI every day. Has Apple been under the gun to compete?
KERR: Apple definitely has been feeling the pressure. Other major tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have already rolled out AI tools. But I should say it hasn't necessarily been smooth sailing for all of these companies. For instance, just last week, Google announced it was pulling back on its new AI-assisted search tool. And that's because within hours of its debut, the tool is giving people all sorts of wacky and possibly dangerous answers. And, you know, ChatGPT itself has also been accused of all sorts of things, including plagiarism, copyright infringement. It's made things up and has given incorrect and biased answers. So once Siri gets ChatGPT, and if it starts to do that, it could be really risky for Apple.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, it sounds like it. I mean, so is Apple basically outsourcing its AI development to this company?
KERR: No, not completely. It also announced its own batch of AI-centric tools yesterday. It's grouping all of this in what the company calls Apple Intelligence. But these are tools that will be familiar to us because we've seen them in other companies' products. There's things like writing tools that can draft emails and letters or essays to your 6-year-old. Basically, what we're seeing is nothing really new, but it's the first time we've seen Apple really take a hold of AI. And why this is significant is that millions of people own Apple's iPhone and its other products. So essentially, the company will be bringing ChatGPT and its other AI tools to a huge new group of people.
SCHMITZ: Trying to turn artificial intelligence into Apple Intelligence. NPR tech correspondent, Dara Kerr, thank you.
KERR: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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