At its annual Worldwide Developers' Conference or ‘Dub Dub’ as it is affectionately referred to, Apple has introduced a number of advancements coming soon to the company’s products. Apple has been quieter than other companies when it comes to AI, but now, with the introduction of ‘Apple Intelligence,’ the Cupertino giant will put its own take on AI into action.
"We’re thrilled to introduce a new chapter in Apple innovation. Apple Intelligence will transform what users can do with our products — and what our products can do for our users," said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Our unique approach combines generative AI with a user’s personal context to deliver truly helpful intelligence. And it can access that information in a completely private and secure way to help users do the things that matter most to them. This is AI as only Apple can deliver it, and we can’t wait for users to experience what it can do."
Apple will be threading AI deeply into different task categories. For example, Intelligence will be built in to unlock new ways for users to enhance their writing and communication with systemwide writing tools built into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. With this, users can rewrite, proofread, and summarise text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps, merely by asking and allowing users to choose from different versions of what they have written, adjusting the tone to suit the audience and task at hand. From finessing a cover letter, to adding humour and creativity to a party invitation, Rewrite, one of the tools, helps deliver the right words to meet the occasion.
With Summarise, users can select text and have it recapped in the form of a digestible paragraph, bulleted key points, a table, or a list — helpful in work situations.
In Mail, staying on top of emails has never been easier. With Priority messages, a new section at the top of the inbox shows the most urgent emails, like a same-day dinner invitation or boarding pass.
Other apps will also use these tools. In the Notes and phone apps, users can now record, transcribe, and summarise audio. When a recording is initiated while on a call, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary to help recall key points. Handwritten notes, using Apple Pencil, will also be summarised and the writing enhanced.
Apple Intelligence powers image creation capabilities to help users communicate and express themselves in new ways. With Image Playground, users can create fun images in seconds, choosing from three styles: Animation, Illustration, or Sketch. Image Playground is easy to use and built right into apps including Messages.
In Notes, users can access Image Playground through the new Image Wand in the Apple Pencil tool palette, making notes more visually engaging. Rough sketches can be turned into images even in Keynote, Freeform, and Pages, as well as in third-party apps that adopt the new Image Playground API.
Taking emoji to an entirely new level, users will now be able to create an original Genmoji to express themselves and others simply by typing a description.
AI will be leveraged with photos as well. Searching for photos and videos will be more convenient by the use of natural language to search for specific photos. For example “Maya skateboarding in a tie-dye shirt”.
Powered by Apple Intelligence, Siri becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience. With richer language-understanding capabilities, Siri will be more natural, more contextually relevant, and more personal, with the ability to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. It can follow along if users stumble over words and maintain context from one request to the next. Additionally, users can type to Siri, and switch between text and voice to communicate with Siri in whatever way feels right for the moment. Siri also has a new design with a glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when Siri is active. More importantly, Siri will now give users device support everywhere they go, and answer questions about how to do something on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. With onscreen awareness, Siri will be able to understand and take action with users’ content in more apps over time. For example, if a friend texts a user their new address in Messages, the receiver can say, “Add this address to his contact card.”
To actually be helpful, Apple Intelligence relies on understanding deep personal context while also protecting user privacy. A cornerstone of Apple Intelligence is on-device processing, and many of the models that power it run entirely on device. To run more complex requests that require more processing power, Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of Apple devices into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence.
With Private Cloud Compute, Apple Intelligence can flex and scale its computational capacity and draw on larger, server-based models for more complex requests. These models run on servers powered by Apple silicon, providing a foundation that allows Apple to ensure that data is never retained or exposed.
Apple is integrating ChatGPT access into experiences within iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, allowing users to access its expertise — as well as its image and document-understanding capabilities — without needing to jump between tools.
Siri can tap into ChatGPT’s expertise when helpful. Users are asked before any questions are sent to ChatGPT, along with any documents or photos, and Siri then presents the answer directly. Additionally, ChatGPT will be available in Apple’s systemwide Writing Tools, which help users generate content for anything they are writing about. With Compose, users can also access ChatGPT image tools to generate images in a wide variety of styles to complement what they are writing.
Apple Intelligence will be free for users and will be available in beta as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia this fall, in U.S. English. Some features, software platforms, and additional languages will come over the course of the next year. Apple Intelligence will be available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later, with Siri and device language set to U.S. English.
