Apple is finally prepared to dive headfirst into generative AI across its products and services. After debuting an AI-powered autocorrect in iOS 17, Apple now looks to integrate generative AI more broadly.
Apple Goes on AI Talent Hunt
So how do we know this? Well, according to TechCrunch, Apple has been on a major hiring spree for AI specialists. The open positions indicate Apple is developing everything from an internal AI developer platform to a conversational AI for customer service.
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The job descriptions read like a sci-fi wishlist: long-form text generation, summarization, question answering, and even a “human-like conversational agent.”
In classic Apple fashion, they want people who can run complex AI models locally on devices rather than in the cloud.
This group is a collective of hands-on research scientists from a wide variety of fields related to natural language processing. Join them to work with natural language understanding, machine translation, named entity recognition, question answering, topic segmentation, and automatic speech recognition. This team’s research typically relies on very large quantities of data and innovative methods in deep learning to tackle user challenges around the world — in languages from around the world. Areas of work include Natural Language Engineering, Language Modeling, Text-to-Speech Software Engineering, Speech Frameworks Engineering, Data Science, and Research. – Apple Jobs
Over $1 Billion Annually for AI Products
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported Apple plans to invest over $1 billion per year on generative AI features and products. Insiders say not shipping generative AI would be a “pretty big miss” for Apple.
Apple intends to leverage large language models (LLMs) to empower new capabilities for Siri and Messages. They are also exploring AI-enhanced features for Xcode, Apple Music, Pages, Keynote, and more.
While rivals rapidly deployed AI features, Apple has moved slower. But these plans signal Apple is ready to play catch-up in a major way.
Huge Hiring Push for AI Talent
To power its AI ambitions, Apple is aggressively hiring more AI researchers, engineers, and other experts. Key areas of focus include natural language processing, speech recognition, and cutting-edge machine learning approaches like deep learning and reinforcement learning.
Apple is particularly interested in talent that can optimize complex AI models to run efficiently on iPhones and other devices. This aligns with Apple’s privacy-centric ethos by keeping user data processed locally rather than in the cloud.
Conversational AI and Digital Assistants
Several listings mention conversational AI and digital assistants. This hints at major improvements coming to Siri using generative AI techniques like those powering chatbots such as ChatGPT.
Multiple positions also reference long-form text generation, suggesting Apple may be developing a rival to tools like ChatGPT that can generate lengthy articles, stories, and other creative writing on demand.
Multimodal AI Across Apple Apps
Apple looks to infuse multimodal AI across its apps and services. This means leveraging AI alongside other modalities like images, audio, video, and more.
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For example, combining computer vision and natural language processing to understand and describe images.
Racing to Keep Pace with AI Innovation
After being slower to adopt generative AI than competitors, Apple is racing to build internal AI talent and leadership. With rivals setting a rapid pace of innovation, Apple knows it needs to push hard on AI to keep consumers excited and loyal to its ecosystem.
