With the release of Apple’s VisionPro today, it has already been a year of huge technological leaps for the tech giant.
But CEO Tim Cook has now confirmed that 2024 could have an even bigger surprise in store after teasing a big announcement on artificial intelligence (AI).
Although Apple’s products already include some machine learning features, they are yet to produce an AI product to rival ChatGPT.
But now the Apple boss has revealed that Apple will be sharing details of their ‘ongoing work’ in AI ‘later this year’.
Cook would not reveal exact details of what AI features could be coming but said: ‘We have got some things that we’re incredibly excited about.’
Apple CEO Tim Cook (pictured) says that the tech giant will make a big announcement about new AI features sometime in the coming year
Speaking on Apple’s quarterly earnings report on Thursday, Tim Cook said: ‘As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in these and other technologies that will shape the future.
‘That includes artificial intelligence, where we continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort, and we’re excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year.’
OpenAI’s hugely successful product ChatGPT and Google’s Bard are examples of ‘generative AI’ – AI that is capable of producing content including text, images, video, or audio.
Since late 2022, the success of ChatGPT has led to generative AI receiving significant attention from tech companies and investors.
Other tech giants have leapt on the trend and ploughed vast amounts of funds into AI partnerships to bring out their own models in record time.
Apple is yet to expand into generative AI with a new product but Tim Cook says that the company has been spending a ‘tremendous amount of time and effort’ developing AI (stock image)
Microsoft in particular has invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI, the startup behind Chat GPT.
Apple already uses some machine learning in its chips and devices including the tech that allows your iPhone to recognise pictures of dogs and people in your gallery.
But so far Apple has not joined its rivals in unveiling any generative AI products or features.
It is unusual for Apple to talk up announcements ahead of time, potentially hinting at something big in the pipeline.
But Tim Cook has remained cagey on the details of what exactly the makers of the iPhone are planning.
Microsoft, unlike Apple, has already been very public about its investment and collaboration with OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT. Microsoft has invested more than $10bn in the startup since 2019
Pressed by analysts for more information, Cook responded: ‘Our MO [mission objective], if you will, has always been to do work and then talk about work, and not to get out in front of ourselves.
‘And so we’re going to hold that to this as well. But we have got some things that we’re incredibly excited about, that we’ll be talking about later this year.’
In his concluding remarks to the call, Cook added: ‘Let me just say that I think there’s a huge opportunity for Apple with generative AI and with AI, without getting into many more details or getting out ahead of myself.’
But, despite the lack of fanfare, Apple has been making steady progress laying the framework for a big AI shift.
In October last year, Apple unveiled the new M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max line of chips.
In addition to being blisteringly fast these new chips also include a faster ‘neural engine’, which is Apple’s dedicated set of hardware for processing machine learning models.
Apple’s new range of M3 chips all include a new high-speed Neural Engine specifically designed to run the machine learning models that power AI
AI, especially generative AI, takes a lot of energy and computational power to run.
But Apple’s custom hardware might just give their tech an edge when it comes to running some models locally rather than through the cloud.
Likewise, last year Apple very quietly released a new large language model (LLM), the kind of model underlying generative AI, in collaboration with Columbia University.
This open-source model, named Ferret, is free to use and allows users to select an area of an image and identify objects in that area.
However, there is no indication that the announcements teased by Tim Cook will have anything to do with the Ferret model.
MailOnline has contacted Apple for comment.
