WASHINGTON: Apple is talking to major rival Meta about integrating the Facebook parent company’s generative AI into its products, as it tries to catch up with rivals on artificial intelligence, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
The report comes after Apple also struck a deal with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, to help equip its Apple Intelligence suite of new AI features for its coveted products.
For months, pressure has been on Apple to persuade doubters on its AI strategy, after Microsoft and Google rolled out products in rapid-fire succession.
It has developed its own, smaller artificial intelligence but said that it will turn to others such as OpenAI to boost its in-house offering.
According to the Journal, which cited sources close to the matter, Meta has held discussions with Apple over integrating its own generative AI model into Apple Intelligence.
Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said in early June that Apple also wanted to integrate capabilities from Google’s generative AI system, Gemini, into its devices.
The iPhone maker is also expected to discuss partnerships with other AI companies in different regions like China, where Microsoft-backed OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT is banned.
AI startup Anthropic has been in discussions with Apple to bring its generative AI to Apple Intelligence, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Meta and Anthropic declined to comment, while Apple did not respond immediately to request for comment outside business hours.
AI search startup Perplexity has also been in discussions with Apple about bringing its generative AI technology to Apple Intelligence, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The big challenge for Apple has been how to infuse ChatGPT-style AI — which voraciously feeds off data — into its products without weakening its heavily promoted user privacy and security, according to analysts.
Apple Intelligence will enable users to create their own emojis based on a description in everyday language, or to generate brief summaries of emails in the mailbox.
Apple said Siri, its voice assistant, will also get an AI-infused upgrade and now will appear as a pulsating light on the edge of your home screen.
Launched over 12 years ago, Siri has long since been seen as a dated feature, overtaken by the new generation of assistants, such as GPT-4o, OpenAI’s latest offering.
According to Canalys, 16 percent of smartphones shipped this year will be equipped with generative AI features, a proportion it expects to rise to 54 percent by 2028.
The discussions have not been finalized and could fall through, WSJ reported, adding that deals with Apple would help AI companies to obtain a wider distribution of their products.
The size of potential financial windfall is unclear, but the talks involved AI companies selling premium subscriptions to their services through Apple Intelligence, the report said.
