Apple secretly working on its own AI chatbot, report claims

iPhone maker has been slower and more cautious in adopting artificial intelligence than competitors

(AFP via Getty Images)

Apple is working on its own ‘Apple GPT’, according to a new report.

The system is an artificial intelligence chatbot like those offered by other companies, Bloomberg reported. It uses Apple’s own large language model framework and is built on tools from Google, the report said.

The company is still unclear what purpose the system will serve, Bloomberg reported. But it is gearing up for a major announcement next year, it said.

Multiple teams are currently working on the project, the report claimed, with some of those tasked with working on privacy concerns around the technology. Apple has focused on privacy as one of its fundamental principles, especially in recent years.

If released, ‘Apple GPT’ would mark Apple’s first major step into artificial intelligence as its own product. Apple has been much more slower than competitors in offering own AI tools, and has been publicly cautious about embracing the technology.

In an earnings call earlier this year, for instance, chief executive Tim Cook said that Apple was planning to “weave” artificial intelligence into its products, but that it would have to be “deliberate and thoughtful”. He said there is a “number of issues that need to be sorted”.

Many had expected that Apple could address the growth of and hype around artificial intelligence during its Worldwide Developers Conference event last month, where it also released its Vision Pro virtual reality headset. But the topic went notably unmentioned, and Apple did not use the phrase at all, instead referring to those products using the technology as being powered by machine learning.

Apple already offers a host of products powered by technologies that are often referred to as artificial intelligence. Siri uses such capabilities to power its voice recognition and responses, for instance – though Apple does not tend to publicly refer to it as such.

Previous reports have suggested that Apple’s progress on artificial intelligence has been hindered by its characteristic private approach, which set it against a research community that is focused on publishing papers and sharing research. In recent years, however, it has made a number of high profile hires in the field and allowed them to publicly publish some of that work.