Apple Intelligence: release date, features, privacy, and more

Apple Intelligence is Apple’s new take on AI, aiming to revolutionize the way we interact with technology by integrating advanced machine learning and AI capabilities into everyday devices. This transformative new AI ecosystem promises improved conversational abilities from Siri, automated proofreading and text summarization across various apps, and lightning-fast image generation to enhance user experiences and streamline operations across Apple’s product lineup.

Scheduled for release this fall, Apple Intelligence will be included in the upcoming operating system updates: iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Initially, these AI features will only be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, as well as iPads and Macs with M1 or newer chips, and when the user language is set to English due to the intensive processes requiring the advanced capabilities of these newer chips.

The AI features will focus on writing assistance, image creation and editing, and enhancing Siri’s cognitive capabilities across all Apple devices. From Writing Tools for proofreading and summarizing text to Image Playground for generating images in different styles, Apple Intelligence will bring a host of new features to improve user experiences. Siri will also see significant enhancements, becoming more conversational and integrated into the operating system with improved natural language processing.

Privacy is a key focus of Apple Intelligence, with most operations handled on-device to protect user data. Apple has developed its own secure AI compute cloud, Private Cloud Compute (PCC), to ensure that user data is not stored or accessible to Apple, reducing the risk of data breaches or privacy violations.

In addition to Apple Intelligence, Apple has partnered with ChatGPT to bring cutting-edge generative AI to its devices, further enhancing the capabilities and user experiences of Apple products. At WWDC, Apple and OpenAI executives unveiled a new partnership that will see the integration of ChatGPT functionality (powered by GPT-4o) into Siri and Writing Tools. This integration will include image and text generation capabilities. Similar to Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT will assist Siri if its onboard capabilities are insufficient for a user’s query. However, instead of using the PCC, ChatGPT will send the request to OpenAI’s public compute cloud.

Users will be able to access ChatGPT’s features without leaving the Siri screen. Siri will provide the answer regardless of where the query was processed. To protect user privacy to some extent, the device will ask for permission before transmitting the request, along with any attached documents or images.