Many people believe that Apple has fallen behind in the field of artificial intelligence. While Microsoft has established a significant partnership with Chat GPT, Nvidia has rebranded itself as THE AI enabler, and Google is aggressively pursuing ways to reduce human interaction, Apple has remained conspicuously silent on this topic.
At first glance, it seems that Apple’s only venture into AI was with the introduction of Siri, their digital assistant that has remained active and functional since its debut during the iPhone 4S launch in 2011. However, Siri often speaks when not prompted or misunderstands requests.
But recent findings from Stocklytics have revealed that Apple is quickly catching up. They acquired 32 AI startups in 2023, which is more than Google’s 21, Meta’s 18, Microsoft’s 17, and Amazon’s 10.
The companies already under Apple’s banner include Voysis, focused on voice-assisted shopping, WaveOne, specializing in video compression, Emotient, with technology for reading emotions from facial expressions, Laserlike, offering news reading and tracking services, Drive.ai, a self-driving car technology company, and AI.Music, which creates mood-based AI-generated music. Their most recent acquisition, Brighter AI, provides a service that anonymizes video data, replacing real people’s faces with realistic artificial ones while prioritizing privacy.
Rather than simply purchasing finished products, Apple has taken over these startups in their early stages of development. It is assumed that these teams are collaborating on a comprehensive strategy to integrate new AI capabilities across various platforms within the iOS ecosystem and other related devices.
Rumors suggest that Apple has enhanced the machine learning and AI capabilities in the iPhone 15 and the previous year’s iPads. This upgraded power is anticipated to be central to the new features of the iPhone 16 in conjunction with iOS18. It is expected that the 2024 hardware will mark the most significant advancement in years, delivering on-device, voice-activated features without relying on network connections or collecting private data.
A preview of these upcoming advancements was displayed through Apple’s in-progress MLLM-Guided Image Editing AI, allowing image editing using voice commands.
With the potential to significantly enhance their current capabilities and prioritize privacy, Apple may be on the verge of achieving a remarkable victory in the AI landscape.
