Apple Inc.'s annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday is expected to herald the company's foray into generative artificial intelligence, marking the company's belated entry into the cutting edge of a technology that promises to be as revolutionary as the invention of the iPhone.
The unveiling of the AI that will be built into iPhones and other Apple products is widely expected to be the highlight of the event that traditionally previews the next version of the software that underpins the company's hardware lineup.
Apple's next-generation software is also expected to be packed with AI features to make its often-clumsy virtual assistant Siri smarter and enable a more productive and enjoyable experience with photos, music, text messages and even instant emoji creation.
Given its secretive nature, Apple has not released any advance details about the event, which will be held on Monday at its headquarters in Cupertino, California.
But CEO Tim Cook has strongly hinted in his first few months that Apple is ready to reveal big plans to enter the sector that has driven the industry's boom over the past 18 months.
The AI fever is a key reason why the market capitalization of Nvidia, the leading maker of the chips that underpin the technology, has soared from about $300 billion at the end of 2022 to about $100 billion by the end of 2023. Approximately $3 trillionThis rapid growth helped Nvidia briefly overtake Apple last week to become the second most valuable company in the U.S. Earlier this year, Microsoft also overtook the iPhone maker, thanks to its successful AI efforts so far.
But analysts are increasingly concerned that Apple is falling too far behind in the fast-changing field of AI. An Unprecedented Long-Term Recession In terms of sales, Google and Samsung The company has already released a smartphone model that highlights AI functions.
That has analysts like Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives seeing Monday's conference as a potential catalyst for catapulting Apple into a new, stronger phase of growth. Ives believes that building more AI into its iPhones, iPads and Mac computers could add $450 billion to $600 billion to Apple's market capitalization.
Monday's conference “will be Apple's most important event in over a decade as the pressure to deliver a generative AI tech stack for developers and consumers is at the forefront,” Ives wrote in a research note.
Apple could certainly use the boost that AI would provide, especially for its 13-year-old assistant, Siri, which Forrester Research's Dipanjan Chatterjee now calls a “weirdly useless helper.”
Meanwhile, OpenAI's ChatGPT has become increasingly conversational and recently sparked accusations of deliberate copying. AI software voiced by Scarlett Johansson –And Google previewed an AI “agent” last month. It's called Astra It seems like he can see and remember things.
Various unconfirmed reports ahead of Monday's conference suggested that Apple will use AI to improve Siri and may partner with OpenAI to bring some elements of ChatGPT to iPhones.
This marks the second year in a row that Apple has made waves at its developers conference by taking the lead in entering a trendy technology that other companies have already entered.
Last year, Apple An early preview of mixed reality headsetsThe Vision Pro, which wasn't released until earlier this year, had a $3,500 price tag that was a major obstacle to widespread adoption, but Apple's mixed reality efforts, with a twist on what it calls “spatial computing,” are raising hopes that what is currently a niche technology could become a big market.
Some reasons for optimism Apple History The strategy is to release their technology later than others, and then combine sleek design and service with slick marketing campaigns to overcome the late start and set new trends.
“Apple's early reluctance to AI was entirely a branding issue,” Forrester's Chatterjee said in a preview of the company's Developer Conference. “The company has famously always been obsessed with how its products deliver to customers, rather than what they deliver to them.”
In particular, introducing more AI into iPhones is likely to raise privacy concerns, where Apple has worked hard to convince its loyal customer base that it won't pry too deeply into their personal lives.
One way Apple could reassure consumers that their iPhones won't be used to spy on them would be to use its own chip technology to process most AI-based functions on the device itself, rather than in a distant data center known as “the cloud.” This approach would also help protect Apple's profit margins, since cloud-based AI technology is much more expensive than running it on the device alone.
