Apple confirms plans to work with Google’s Gemini ‘in the future’

Apple Intelligence is a new suite of AI-powered features introduced by Apple at the WWDC 2024 event1. It was designed for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, and it aims to provide useful and relevant intelligence through the power of generative models combined with personal context4.

Apple Intelligence was introduced as a catchall branding term that refers to a broad group of machine learning, LLM, and image generation technologies. Some of its features include notification prioritization, writing tools that can summarize text or suggest edits, and the ability to generate personalized images for contacts.

Siri also received a significant boost with Apple Intelligence. It can now understand more nuanced requests, carry out tasks on the user's behalf, and maintain context between requests. The system is designed to focus on privacy, with on-device processing for some AI features and a "private cloud compute" system for more complex requests.

Apple Intelligence features are expected to be widely available later this year, with a beta test for developers available this summer.

Apple is taking several privacy measures with the integration of third-party models into Siri. One of the key aspects is user control and transparency. According to Craig Federighi, SVP at Apple, "Siri, it’s really important to understand, will ask you before you go to ChatGPT. Then you can have that conversation with ChatGPT. Then, if there’s any helpful data referenced in your question that you might want to supply to ChatGPT, we’re going to ask. ‘Do you want to send this photo?’ From a privacy point of view, you’re always in control and have total transparency."

This means that Siri will explicitly ask for user permission before sending any data or query to a third-party model like ChatGPT. Additionally, users will have the ability to choose whether they want to share specific information, such as a photo, with the third-party model. These measures aim to ensure that users have control over their data and are aware of how it is being used.

Moreover, Apple has a history of emphasizing user privacy in its products and services. The company has introduced various privacy features, such as App Tracking Transparency, which requires apps to get user permission before tracking their data across apps or websites owned by other companies. With the integration of third-party models into Siri, Apple seems to be continuing its focus on privacy by providing users with control and transparency over their data.