Apple could introduce the biggest revamp of its native virtual assistant Siri since its launch at the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024. The Cupertino tech giant is rumored to unveil its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy and will introduce new features for your devices. . According to a new report, the centerpiece of this move will be making Siri smarter and more efficient. The iPhone maker is expected to use in-house AI models or license them from a third-party source to enhance Siri's capabilities.
According to a report in the New York Times, Apple's top executives made the decision last year that their virtual assistant needed a major overhaul to stay relevant. The realization came when AI chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT showcased the diverse range of tasks they can complete. The inclusion of contextual language understanding, which allowed users to make vague queries and still get the correct answer, was also considered a significant upgrade. Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the report highlighted that Apple is working to add AI capabilities to Siri.
The report noted that improving Siri has become a “campaign project” at Apple's Cupertino headquarters, referring to a “once-in-a-decade” initiative at the company. The company is now said to be preparing to showcase the new Siri at the WWDC 2024 event on June 10. Two focus areas for improving Siri include conversational language and task versatility, the report said. However, it is believed that the tech giant does not want its virtual assistant to become another AI-powered chatbot.
It is believed that instead of turning Siri into a generalist chatbot capable of generating poetry and essays, its output will be controlled and limited to the tasks it already does, but with significant improvements. Users may be able to ask follow-up questions without repeating all the information, which Siri is not currently capable of. It may also be able to perform more tasks on the device. These details are currently unknown.
However, Apple is said to intend to keep Siri private and run it entirely on the device. This means the iPhone maker will be limited to its Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on the device to power the computing and minimize latency issues. This is interesting given that a previous report claimed that Apple is also working on creating AI chips for its data centers.
The NY Times report claims that Apple's decision not to rely on cloud servers stems from profitability. Highlighting an example, he said OpenAI is forced to spend 12 cents (roughly Rs. 16) for every 1,000 words generated by ChatGPT due to cloud computing costs. Apple could avoid this expense by keeping the feature inside the device.
