Apple’s new AI models are built with Gemini but designed for privacy

Apple’s AI upgrade has long been rumored, but on Monday we got a look at the company WWDC Developers Conferencewhen it announced new models of Apple Intelligence that it built in partnership with Google, using that company’s Gemini technology.

Apple Intelligence is expected to be integrated into a lot of Apple tools, especially Revamped Siri personal assistant.

“We believe that truly useful AI should be centered around you and your needs,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said during the conference. WWDC Show main video.

Some things about Apple’s AI aren’t really new: The company is leaning particularly heavily toward on-device AI, which means smaller models designed to run on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, rather than in the cloud. She also described privacy as a cornerstone, noting that Apple does not store your data or chat logs using artificial intelligence.

AI-forward features like a greatly upgraded Siri feel like more powerful versions of what we’ve already had for years. Siri understands what you say better? This is an upgrade, but it’s not revolutionary. Allowing Siri to better understand context by giving it more access to your information means the assistant will be more helpful.

What’s new? The most powerful model on the device is multimodal, meaning it can understand speech and images, Federighi said. They are also more accurate in spelling and understanding language. System Orchestrator can coordinate across models, while Apple Intelligence can also work across your applications.

Compared to competitors like Google, Apple was… Relatively slow on the AI ​​front. Its models and tools did not become household names like ChatGPT, nor did they experience viral moments like these Claude’s Anthropic Code or Google Nano Banana Image generator. But the company has been thinking about how to integrate generative AI into its products, gradually rolling out new AI-powered features.

Instead of highlighting AI, Apple seems to want it to disappear into the operating system, said Francisco Geronimo, vice president of client devices at analyst firm IDC. Apple’s goal is for its AI to be trustworthy and invisible to the user, he said in an email.

“The impact could be significant,” Geronimo said. “If Apple makes AI feel natural, private and useful to everyday users, it will not only strengthen its ecosystem, it could redefine what consumers expect from every device they use.”