Apple's voice assistant Siri could soon be powered by more advanced artificial intelligence, allowing users to control other individual application functions via voice. This move could reflect the iPhone maker's broader AI strategy.
The people, who wished to remain anonymous because the initiative isn't public, claimed that the new approach would enable Siri to take control of every app feature for the first time. According to sources, this shift will be a focal point of the company's revived AI push.
The update will see a rewrite of Siri's underlying software utilizing big language models, a fundamental component of generative AI. This new system will help Siri operate and maneuver an iPhone or iPad more precisely.
This entails sending and deleting emails, opening specific publications in Apple News, email web links, opening individual documents, moving notes to different folders, and even asking the device to summarize an article. While cloud computing will handle more sophisticated capabilities, devices will execute more basic AI activities during the rollout.
The update is a part of the business's wider AI plan, which will be revealed on June 10 at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple is developing several capabilities, such as AI-generated emojis, automated message answers, automated webpage and notification summaries, sophisticated photo editing, and voice memo transcriptions and summaries.
Currently, Siri can only be used for more general tasks, such as managing smart home equipment, playing music playlists, and searching for information. Additionally, the business provides developers with app intents, which let them create custom ways for Siri to access specific features.
Apple's Broader AI Strategy
Additionally, the business has been negotiating with OpenAI to incorporate the startup's chatbot and other technologies into the iOS operating system, and it is still in discussions with Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, about future usage of its Gemini software.
For this year's operating system upgrades, Apple software chief Craig Federighi has instructed his teams to create as many new AI features as possible.
Going one step further, the new system will use AI to monitor user behavior on devices and trigger the activation of Siri-controlled features. At first, it will only work with Apple apps, but the business hopes to enable hundreds of commands.
According to the people, the feature-one of Apple's more intricate AI projects-willn't be available until possibly early in the upcoming year, when it's included in an iOS 18 update. September will see the release of the initial iteration of the new operating system, coinciding with the release of the upcoming iPhone models.
Siri, Bixby, and AI
Apple's potential AI Siri overhaul follows just a few months after Galaxy AI was integrated into Samsung's virtual assistant, Bixby. However, Bixby can only initiate Samsung's Galaxy AI tools for customers hands-free; as a result of the integration, AI is not fully supported; rather, Bixby merely serves as a means of launching Samsung's other AI features.
However, according to earlier reports, a top Samsung official claims that the business is competing with Apple to have its voice assistant, Bixby, driven by generative artificial intelligence.
Executive vice president of Samsung's mobile division, Won-Joon Choi, said he thought the company needed to rethink Bixby's function so that it would get smarter and use generative AI in the future.
Choi said that Samsung is "working so hard" on developing generative AI capabilities for Bixby, but they, at the time, could not specify when those features may become accessible.
