Apple's in-house team working on ChatGPT-like AI assistant: Report

Compared to Google, OpenAI, and even Meta, Apple has fallen way behind the generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI) race. As Apple gets near the 20th anniversary of iPhone, it has formed a new team to work on an all-new large language model (LLMs) to come with a standalone gen AI app.

Robby Walker, an Apple veteran who also previously headed the Siri team, has been tasked with leading a new in-house team, 'Answers, Knowledge, and Information,' to offer a ChatGPT-like service, according to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg.

The gen AI app will have an 'Answer Engine' chatbot and be able to serve the device owner by retrieving accurate information from the website and even be able assist the user in navigating through the settings to enable or disable a function.

Also, Apple's new gen AI app, in phases, will be infused with Siri, Safari, and Spotlight features to improve user experience. This will surely help Apple to end its reliance on ChatGPT, which is now an optional feature to run Apple Intelligence features such as Image Playground, Smart Writing Tools, and others.

While Apple's HR team is actively posting job openings related to gen AI, search engine, and LLMs, the Cupertino-based company has lost several AI experts to rival company Meta.

The most recent one is Ruoming Pang, who, according to reports in the media, was offered a whopping 200 million joining bonus by Mark Zuckerberg. The latter is also building a Superintelligence AI team of globally reputed engineers, experts, and researchers.

Zuckerberg is bullish about Meta outrunning its peers to first achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the next frontier of gen AI.

For the uninitiated, AGI is a hypothetical AI which can think independently like a human being and do tasks with less or no supervision required. It can even learn from mistakes and make course corrections to get the job done.

Apple, despite the slow start, is very confident that the company will come up with a solid gen AI service with user privacy at its core and still be able to serve the device owner the best user experience.

It remains to be seen how fast Apple's new team will deliver the new gen-AI service. Will it deliver before the 20th anniversary of the iPhone? Only time will tell.

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