Siri and Google Assistant look to generative AI for a new lease on life

The expectations for Apple's presentation at WWDC 2024 are high, as the company is set to reveal its AI plans, which have been a massive question mark looming over Cupertino for the last few years. Apple is expected to announce a partnership with OpenAI that will bring the company's smarts to the iPhone and Mac. The near-term strategy is a deep integration between existing properties and generative AI, with Siri at the center.

This is considered significant because generative AI is expected to profoundly affect how we interact with our devices, and Apple has been under pressure to embrace this technology as its competitors, Google and Microsoft, have already made significant progress in this field. Additionally, WWDC is Apple's opportunity to showcase its software capabilities and AI-powered updates, amid a wave of AI releases from other major tech companies.

Google's implementation of generative AI in its search engine has been met with mixed reactions. On one hand, the new AI Overviews feature has the potential to provide users with quick summaries and answers to their queries, drawing on the company's advanced Gemini model. This has been seen as a way for Google to keep up with competitors like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing in the generative AI space.

However, there are also concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the information provided by the AI system. Google's algorithms have been found to give unusual advice, such as suggesting people eat rocks or put glue on pizza, raising questions about the quality of the sources used and the model's ability to discern accurate information1.

Additionally, there are concerns about the impact on websites that rely on traffic from Google Search. Some estimates suggest that as much as 25% of this traffic could be lost due to the changes, which could have significant implications for these sites.

Google has acknowledged these issues and is working to improve the system, including better detection of "nonsensical queries" and making the system rely less heavily on user-generated content. The company also notes that the new feature is designed to complement, not replace, traditional search results.

Despite these efforts, the implementation of generative AI in Google's search engine raises broader questions about the reliability of AI-generated information and the potential impacts on the wider web ecosystem.