Apple is reportedly working on artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
The tech giant has not announced a strategy for releasing the technology to consumers, but its development of large language models (LLMs) — the AI-based systems at the heart of new services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard — represents a major effort for the company, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 19), citing unnamed sources.
Apple did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.
This AI initiative has been allocated to several teams, according to the Bloomberg report.
Apple shares rose as much as 2.3% and reached a record high Wednesday after the report of the AI effort was published, Bloomberg said.
The firm has been conspicuously absent from the frenzy surrounding generative AI, as its only major AI product, the Siri voice assistant, has shown little development in recent years, according to the report.
Apple’s chatbot app was created as an experiment at the end of last year, but its release within the company was initially halted due to security concerns about the AI, the report said. However, access has since been extended to more employees, but only with special approval and with the requirement that any output from it is not allowed to be used to develop features for customer use.
From this, Apple is still trying to figure out how AI could be incorporated into consumer products, per the report. In the meantime, the company is attempting to assemble a cross-company effort between its AI and software engineering groups, as well as its cloud services engineering team, in order to create the infrastructure for any new features.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said during an earnings call in early May that companies should exercise caution while racing to add AI to its products. He said that the potential for the technology is “huge” and that his company would introduce AI on a “very thoughtful basis.”
PYMNTS’ Karen Webster wrote on May 22 that Apple’s stance on privacy and user data, and its closed ecosystem, may have the firm winning the hearts and minds of consumers but losing the generative AI war.
“Unless something changes, Apple may end up playing the role of smartphone, mobile OS and App Store, just like it does today — with an App Store that comes chock-full of everyone else’s GPT app innovations,” Webster wrote at the time.