Apple execs apparently were caught off guard by the AI fever gripping the industry and have been scrambling since late last year in an effort to play catch-up with first movers in the technology.
Apple is prepared to spend billions to catch the leaders in generative AI technology, according to Bloomberg Apple watcher Mark Gurman.
In his Power On newsletter Sunday, Gurman wrote that three Apple execs — John Giannandrea, Craig Federighi, and Eddy Cue — are leading the company’s generative AI push and are on a course to spend US$1 billion a year on the initiative.
He noted that Giannandrea is overseeing the development of a new AI system, including a smarter version of Apple’s digital assistant, Siri.
Federighi’s group, Gurman continued, is working on adding AI to Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, filling it with features running on the company’s large language model (LLM).
Meanwhile, Cue’s group will be trying to add AI to as many Apple apps as possible, Gurman added, including Apple Music, Pages, and Keynote.
He also revealed that Apple executives were caught off guard by the AI fever gripping the industry and have been scrambling since late last year in an effort to play catch-up with first movers in the technology.Playing the Long Game
Apple is less concerned than others might be about first-mover’s advantage, contended Anshel Sag, a senior analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, a technology analyst and advisory firm based in Austin, Texas.
“There is still a lot to shake out in the AI space both on hardware and software, and I don’t think Apple believes it needs to rush to catch up,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“That said,” he continued, “it also cannot fall too far behind, and if you look at Apple’s continued silicon investment in AI compute on the iPhone, it’s quite clear that Apple is not letting the Microsofts and the Googles of the world get too far ahead.”
Apple’s focus on privacy and security also may have made its advances in AI take longer than Google and Microsoft, he added.
“Generative AI is not something you’d expect them to be way out in front on given their focus on hardware and other things, maintained David Smith, a vice president and analyst at Gartner, a research and advisory company based in Stamford, Conn.
