With a Single Word, Apple Just Put Microsoft and Google on Notice About AI

Ahead of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this week, there was a lot of speculation about whether the company would be able to catch up with the rest of the tech industry in terms of sprinkling artificial intelligence (AI) into its software platforms. The impression that it was behind comes from the fact that its biggest competitors, Microsoft and Google, had a much more compelling story to tell. 

Microsoft, for example, has a $10 billion partnership with OpenAI and built ChatGPT into its CoPilot feature in Windows and Microsoft’s apps. Google–despite its problematic AI search experience–showed off a number of impressive Gemini demos at its I/O conference last month. 

Now, Apple has had a chance to tell its story. On Monday, the company announced updates to all of its software platforms, and introduced its own flavor of AI, something it is calling “Apple Intelligence.” 

The name isn’t purely semantics or marketing. Apple is taking a different approach that is primarily centered around making your device more useful, while keeping your information private. During the keynote, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, shared Apple’s approach.

“As we look to build in these incredible new capabilities, we want to ensure that the outcome reflects the principles at the core of our products,” Cook said. “It has to be powerful enough to help with the things that matter most to you. It has to be intuitive and easy to use. It has to be deeply integrated into your product experiences. Most importantly, it has to understand you and be grounded in your personal context, like your routine, your relationships, your communications, and more. And, of course, it has to be built with privacy from the ground up.”

Privacy Matters

There’s a lot to unpack in that, and I recommend you watch the last 30 minutes of the keynote. As you do, you’ll notice one word that popped up a handful of times: only. 

For example, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, explained why, “This is only possible through our unique integration of hardware and software, and our years-long investment and building advanced silicon for on-device intelligence.”

He’s right. Apple’s advantage is that it controls the entire ecosystem. It makes the hardware and software, which gives it the ability to understand context about who you are and what you’re doing. It also gives it the ability to send “only” the information needed to process the request. 

“When you make a request, Apple intelligence analyzes whether it can be processed on device if it needs greater computational capacity,” Federighi said. “It can draw on private cloud compute and send only the data that’s relevant to your task to be processed on Apple silicon servers. Your data is never stored or made accessible to Apple. It’s used exclusively to fulfill your request.”

Did you catch that word again? Apple is sending only the data relevant to your query or question. Because it has control of the core operating system, it’s able to gather context from whatever you’re doing on your device, as well as information contained in your messages, email, photos, and other apps. But, instead of sending everything to the cloud each time, your iPhone is sending only the data it thinks is relevant, and it never stores that information on its servers. 

AI, as a general rule, isn’t going anywhere. Even if it mostly seems like a gimmick to most people, it has the potential to make our iPhones and other devices so much more useful. Apple has a unique advantage because it controls the entire user experience, meaning it can do things that other companies can’t. 

The Ecosystem Advantage

I could see a scenario in the future where Siri sees that you have an email from a colleague asking if you’re available for a meeting next Tuesday, sees that your calendar is pretty full, and suggests a different time. In fact, I could even imagine it sending you a notification and offering to reply to the email in your tone and voice. 

That’s far more useful than having a generative AI chatbot on your laptop, and it’s the kind of thing that changes the experience of using your device in a way that is a lot more compelling than just editing out distractions from the background. Don’t get me wrong, that’s cool too–and it’s good that Apple is finally adding those features as well–but the real benefit of Apple Intelligence is that it can do things on your behalf. 

“And this is only the beginning,” Federighi said. “Siri will be able to understand and take more actions in more apps over time.” 

Ultimately, that’s Apple’s advantage–that it can do all of that and still keep your personal information private. With Apple Intelligence, Siri can take action on your behalf, using the context of your personal information, without giving up your privacy. 

The bottom line is simple: Only Apple could do this.