Apple enters AI race with major update to Siri

Apple has taken a big step into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) with a significant update to Siri, the virtual voice assistant. This update, the biggest since Siri was launched in 2011, marks Apple's official participation in the AI race started a year and a half ago by OpenAI's ChatGPT. While Apple avoids the term “AI” and prefers to speak of “Apple Intelligence,” it's clear that the company wants to stand out from the competition.

Personal intelligence according to Apple

During the presentation, CEO Tim Cook emphasized that this update goes beyond traditional AI and spoke of “personal intelligence”. This highlights Apple's commitment to take a unique position in the market. Despite the marketing language, it's clear that Apple wants to catch up with this update, especially considering recent AI developments at competitors like Google and Microsoft.

New features and improvements

The update for Siri promises more human interaction and the ability to combine information from different apps. An example of this is being able to ask what time to pick up your mother at the airport, where to have lunch, and how far apart the two locations are. Siri gets this information from emails, text messages, and the maps app.

In addition, Siri will be able to summarize emails, help rewrite texts, and generate AI images, such as personalized birthday cards. In Safari, Apple's browser, mini-summaries of web pages showing the most important information will be available.

Privacy and Collaboration with ChatGPT

Apple continues to value privacy. Questions are initially dealt with on the device itself and only when that fails are they switched to servers in a data center. Interesting is the announced partnership with OpenAI's ChatGPT, which will be integrated into Siri. However, users must give consent before data is sent to OpenAI, due to different privacy terms.

The future of Siri and AI at Apple

While the update for Siri may come a little late compared to competitors, Apple has a history of getting into new technologies later and still being successful. This is partly due to the loyal user base of hundreds of millions of people. However, it remains to be seen how soon these new AI features will be available to all Apple users, as they will initially only work on iPhone 15 Pro and Apple computers with the proprietary chip.

Apple's entry into the AI race promises exciting developments for the future, and it will be interesting to see how the market adapts to this new player.

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