Apple has reportedly stepped into the world of AI chatbots with its latest creation, dubbed “Apple GPT,” in an effort to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing, and Google Bard.
This highly anticipated move by Apple was reported by Bloomberg, revealing that the company has been quietly working on its AI chatbot, referred to internally as “Apple GPT.” It’s an obvious nod to the hottest product and famous ChatGPT by OpenAI, which has also been the fastest-growing AI app in recent times.
Also, the demand from users has increased since the launch of the ChatGPT app for the iPhone.
Apple isn’t the first one to join the race. The competition in the generative AI field has now become fierce, especially after the massive success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Tech giants like Microsoft with Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator, Google with Bard and various other AI implementations, as well as Meta and others, have all joined the race.
According to the report, the foundation for Apple’s AI chatbot service was built upon proprietary models created within the Ajax framework. Ajax was originally developed last year and currently operates on Google Cloud infrastructure.
The report mentions that Apple’s employees currently have access to the Apple GPT tool for internal use only. However, just like other product releases, Apple will only unveil this to the general public when they’re good at it. Therefore, you’ll see delays in the making due to security concerns as well. The current users with special access, are strictly prohibited from utilizing any outputs to create customer-oriented features.
You may ask that since it’s a software-related release, why did Apple not mention a single thing about this at WWDC 2023?
One of the reasons that might’ve delayed the Apple GPT announcement could be the all-new Vision Pro. If I think about it, I wouldn’t want to overshadow a product with another one. Hence, to make Vision Pro more important, the announcement might’ve been skipped for another day.
The most probable reason is Apple’s habit of keeping things to themselves while it’s still under work. That’s why there wasn’t any AI-related thing at this year’s developer’s conference which even surprised many working in the AI space.
However, insiders reveal that AI has been a significant focus for Apple in recent months, but the teams are still not ready to make public announcements about their developments.
It’s not like the company hasn’t integrated AI into their system. In fact, Apple has already been using AI, specifically machine learning, across its software and devices. For example, Siri, the virtual assistant, utilizes machine learning and natural language processing and has improved over the years. However, the generative AI integration hasn’t been announced yet and it seems that the company is currently strategizing to commercialize its first Apple GPT, the iAI chatbot.
While Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, has acknowledged using ChatGPT himself but has been relatively reserved when discussing the integration of generative AI in Apple’s products. He also emphasized that security is a primary concern even though this tech has vast potential. Cook also believes that it’s important to address its numerous issues must be a priority before adopting it more widely. This is a great choice as recently AI policy group calls for the FTC to investigate OpenAI’s launch of GPT-4, which was announced with new groundbreaking features.
So, what do you think they’ll call their new chatbot? Is it iBot or iGPT?
Let us know in the comments below!
