At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024, held on June 10, 2024, Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence, a new personal intelligence system deeply integrated into its iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia operating systems. This initiative marks a significant step for Apple into the world of generative AI, with the company placing a strong emphasis on privacy and a deeply personalized user experience.
Apple Intelligence is designed to assist users with everyday tasks, making their devices more helpful and intuitive. The system includes powerful Writing Tools that allow for rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text within apps like Mail, Notes, and Pages, as well as third-party applications. The Image Playground feature enables users to create playful images and Genmoji (personalized AI-generated emoji) directly in Messages, Keynote, and other apps, choosing from animation, illustration, or sketch styles.
Siri also received a major upgrade thanks to Apple Intelligence. The voice assistant has become more natural, contextually aware, and capable of handling more complex, multi-step requests. Siri now has a better understanding of on-screen content, can interact with app content, and allows users to type queries (Type to Siri). Furthermore, the system can perform actions across different apps and manage notifications by highlighting the most important ones.
A key aspect of Apple Intelligence is its data processing approach. Most features will run directly on-device, leveraging the power of A17 Pro and M-series chips. For more complex requests requiring server-side computational power, Apple introduced Private Cloud Compute. This system ensures that user data is never stored or accessible to Apple, being processed on servers using specially designed secure Apple Silicon software.
In addition to its native capabilities, Apple Intelligence will be integrated with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Users will be able to access ChatGPT for assistance in specific situations, such as writing stories or generating content. This integration is optional, requires explicit user permission for each request, and IP addresses and queries are not logged by OpenAI.
The beta version of Apple Intelligence will be available this fall in US English as part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Apple emphasizes that this is just the beginning of their journey in personal intelligence and plans to expand functionality and language support in the future, while maintaining the focus on security and privacy that are foundational to Apple Intelligence.