- Apple finally made a big AI announcement at its WWDC 2024 keynote on Monday.
- Analysts say Apple is making gains in the GenAI space, but total dominance of AI is uncertain.
- The company was praised for its privacy protections through Apple Intelligence and major updates to Siri.
When it comes to the battle to dominate the artificial intelligence field, it's safe to say that Apple has officially entered the fray, figuratively speaking.
During its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday, the tech giant unveiled Apple Intelligence, showing off a range of features coming to its products.
Apple Intelligence is bringing big changes to Photos, Siri, Messages and more in the upcoming updates to iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia. This is big news for anyone with an Apple product. Many Wedbush estimates that there are 2.2 billion iOS devices out there.
So far, analysts have said that Apple “has finally delivered on its long-awaited release of generative AI capabilities,” according to Morningstar technology analyst William Kerwin. Investors had been hoping the company would share more details about its AI plans at WWDC, noting that it has lagged behind other companies like Microsoft and Meta, which have already unveiled their own AI strategies and technologies.
Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said Apple “has done exactly what it needed to do: show the world it's serious about AI.”
Wedbush Securities said Apple “did not disappoint” and maintained an “outperform” rating on the company's shares.
Dipanjan Chatterjee, principal analyst at Forrester, told Business Insider that Apple is staying true to its “customer first, technology second” brand and further underscoring that stance by “extending its customer privacy promise into the wilds of generative AI.” Apple emphasized that intelligence can run on devices without outsourcing to cloud servers, and unveiled “private cloud computing” for more complex requests that require larger, server-based AI models.
The upcoming changes to Siri have been a hot topic for many analysts, especially since the digital assistant has changed very little since it was first introduced 13 years ago. Using Apple Intelligence, Siri will soon be able to take action and navigate within apps and have a deeper understanding of context.
It's unclear how deep Apple's partnership with OpenAI goes, but you can also send queries to ChatGPT when asking Siri something.
“We think Siri's capabilities are the most exciting part of Apple Intelligence,” Kerwin said. “Siri has not lived up to consumer expectations for a long time, but the ability to unlock personalized insights is great.”
Analysts also predict that software updates, many of which are only available for the iPhone 15 Pro and above, will encourage Apple users to upgrade their devices.
Still, while the splashy new announcement may be enough to even the AI playing field for Apple, there's no guarantee the company will be able to pull ahead of its competitors.
“Perhaps Apple's new and improved Siri-enabled, intelligent devices will be enough to stem some of the recent steep decline in device sales, but not enough to generate a new following,” Chatterjee said.
