Apple's Billion-Dollar Bet Could Revolutionize Siri With Cutting-Edge Generative AI: Report

Apple Inc. AAPL is reportedly gearing up to unveil Siri 2.0, a transformative update designed to address long-standing criticisms and challenge its rivals head-on in the voice assistant war.

What Happened: For the past decade, Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, has been a staple feature in iPhones and other Apple devices.

However, it’s no secret that Siri has fallen behind competitors like Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL Google Assistant and Amazon Inc.’s AMZN Alexa in terms of functionality and user satisfaction.

Siri’s journey began in 2011, and it was revolutionary at the time, giving the iPhone a unique edge in the market, but now, the luster has faded. 

Users have grown increasingly frustrated with Siri’s limitations, often encountering misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and limited capabilities compared to its competitors.

Enter Siri 2.0, Apple’s ambitious response to these challenges. 

The tech giant has invested in artificial intelligence, allocating substantial resources to improve its voice assistant. Cupertino has reportedly been recruiting top-tier engineers and forming specialized teams to work on generative AI projects, similar to the technologies behind ChatGPT.

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Apple’s Foundational Models team, led by former Google veteran Ruoming Pang, has been at the forefront of these efforts. 

Despite its relatively small size, the team has made significant strides in training advanced large-language models or LLMs that rival even those developed by OpenAI, a company that invested over $100 million in similar technology, reported AppleInsider. 

Apple has dedicated resources to at least two additional teams developing language and image models. 

One team focuses on Visual Intelligence, with a primary goal of generating images, videos, and 3D scenes, whereas another team is actively engaged in developing multimodal AI, enabling it to handle text, images, and videos, the report noted citing The Information. 

The core objective of Siri 2.0 is to integrate these advanced LLMs into the voice assistant, enabling users to automate complex tasks using natural language, much like Google’s enhancements to Google Assistant. Apple is confident that its proprietary language model, Ajax GPT, outpaces OpenAI’s GPT 3.5.

Why It’s Important: This endeavor comes with certain challenges. Unlike competitors that rely on cloud-based models, Apple prefers on-device processing for improved privacy and performance. 

The trade-off is that Apple’s LLMs are substantial and complex, making it a struggle to fit them into the limited space of an iPhone.

To tackle this hurdle, the tech giant may follow in the footsteps of Google, which developed PaLM2, a large model that offers different sizes, including one suitable for devices and offline use, the report stated.  

Although Apple’s exact approach remains undisclosed, it’s conceivable that the company will opt for smaller LLMs to safeguard user privacy.

Image source – Shutterstock

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