Apple has finally launched its generative AI, but is it too late to enter the competition?
In recent years, the topic of “generative artificial intelligence” has been the center of discussion in the technology field. This revolution began, mainly for the general public, with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. I myself have written several articles about this artificial intelligence and its impact on our lives.
This change had an even greater impact on technology companies, which quickly sought to create a “ChatGPT” to call their own. At the time, Microsoft took the lead, investing US$10 billion in OpenAI and promising to integrate it into its search engine (Bing) and the company’s tools. Today, all of the company’s artificial intelligence initiatives are called “Copilot.” This partnership led to an increase in the number of searches on the Bing search engine. People wanted to test the new artificial intelligence tools after the success of ChatGPT.
This sounded an alarm at the largest company responsible for most Internet searches, Google, which quickly sought its own AI, at the time called “Bard”; however, in 2024, this intelligence was renamed “Gemini”, which promises to revolutionize interactions with artificial intelligence, in addition to being integrated into the company’s products.
Another company that stood out in this area was Samsung, which launched its “Galaxy AI”, which has a series of features to make life easier for its users, such as simultaneous translation of voice calls, virtual interpreter and intelligent chat that suggests messages, intelligent features for editing images, and many others that are yet to come. It is worth remembering that Samsung and Google have partnered in the area of generative artificial intelligence to bring all these new features and tools to Samsung cell phones. I believe that this partnership and the warm reception from the public to test these tools raised an alarm at Apple. I myself spoke to some friends who were considering exchanging years of loyalty to the iPhone to migrate to Samsung in order to test these new tools that have proven to be revolutionary.
Another warning that shows that the “generative artificial intelligence” market is very hot was the company Nvidia, which at the beginning of June surpassed Apple in market value for the first time since 2002. In addition, it surpassed Microsoft and became the company with the highest market value in the US. It is worth remembering that it was only for a short time. But after all, who is Nvidia?
For those who like “games”, you will certainly already know this brand, known for its high-performance video cards for games, such as the iconic “GeForce RTX” cards. However, for the general public, it may be unknown. Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, with the certainty that one day computers would become a device for enjoying games and multimedia. At the time of its launch, there were more than 20 companies producing graphics chips, a number that would rise to 70 three years later. However, in 2006, NVIDIA was the only independent company still in operation. But you may be wondering what a company that makes video cards has to do with artificial intelligence? Nvidia dominates 80% of the market for high-quality AI chips and, according to market experts, the company owns 98% of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) market for data centers. Remember that artificial intelligence, for the most part, runs in the cloud within these data centers. Nvidia’s rise is yet another reminder that AI is a major focus for investors around the world. Companies in this area are likely to grow significantly in the coming years.
Faced with this scenario, Apple had to change, and it seems that the “Apple has finally woken up”. Until last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed in no rush to develop AI tools. In an interview with Forbes at the time, he said: “We’ve been working on generative AI for years and we’ve done a lot of research. And we’re going to approach it very carefully and think deeply, because we’re fully aware of the unethical uses that could arise and the issues related to political bias and hallucination, and so on. You know, we never felt the urgency to be first.we’ve always felt the urgency to be the best, and that’s how we approach this as well.” But recently Tim Cook has started to change his tone, it seems that urgency has arrived, and the CEO has started to talk much more about the topic at every opportunity. In a meeting with shareholders, Cook promised that Apple’s generative AI will “break new ground” by 2024.
It might be a bit unfair to say that Apple has never invested in AI. In the Forbes interview, they say that they have always invested in this technology, but the company prefers to use other vocabulary, such as the term “machine learning”, which is more commonly used among academics and technicians in the field. They also prefer to focus on publicizing what the software does for the user, rather than informing that there is artificial intelligence behind the solution. This stance by the company may show a certain arrogance, after all, Apple does not need to be like the others. However, they forgot that investors want to know clearly whether the company will follow this market trend or not.
And that’s exactly what Apple did during the 2024 WWDC (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference), when it introduced its “Apple Intelligence”. In the words of Tim Cook: “I’m thrilled to announce a new chapter in the history of innovation at Apple. Apple Intelligence will transform what users can do with our products, and what our products can do for users. Our unique approach combines generative AI with each person’s personal context to deliver highly useful intelligence. And we can access this information in a completely private and secure way to help people do the things that matter most to them. This is the kind of AI that only Apple can deliver, and it will be exciting to see people discover all the new possibilities.”
The company announced that its AI will be fully integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. And what caught everyone’s attention is that Apple will integrate ChatGPT access into Siri, Apple’s “forgotten” assistant. According to the company, “Siri can leverage the ChatGPT experience when it’s useful. Users are asked questions before any question is sent to ChatGPT, along with any documents or photos, and Siri presents the answer directly.” And that’s just one of the new features; the company showed off numerous functions that its artificial intelligence will be able to perform, which excited many of its users and especially the financial market. Apple shares closed at a record high after the announcement of “Apple Intelligence” and its partnership with OpenAI on the solution. The company’s value rose to US$3.17 trillion, consolidating itself as the second largest company in the United States by market value, behind only Microsoft, which is valued at US$3.21 trillion.
The news of the launch of “Apple Intelligence” and the positive market reaction reminded me that Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, was considered the “wizard of technology”. This also reminded me of a statement by another famous wizard of pop culture, which refers to the initial question, whether Apple was late to the competition in this market. I leave the quote below for you to reflect on:
“A magician is never late, nor is he early, he arrives exactly when he intends to arrive.”.
Gandalf the Grey – Character from the book The Lord of the Rings.
* This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the vehicle
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