Apple dramatically ramps up AI efforts with $1B annual budget

Apple is increasing its commitment to artificial intelligence by directing $1 billion annually to AI development, according to reports from Bloomberg on Oct. 23.

The company appears to be responding to market perceptions that it has lagged behind its competitors on this front. One source told Bloomberg that Apple executives are coping with “a lot of anxiety” over the issue, adding that the company’s existing policies are “considered a pretty big miss internally.”

The new AI initiative is currently being led by three leading Apple executives. John Giannandrea, the company’s senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, is leading a team responsible for developing the AI system’s underlying technology. His team also adapts Apple’s digital assistant, Siri, to use the new AI.

Craig Federighi, who serves as Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, is leading a group that is dedicated to adding AI features to iOS. His group’s work will also help to integrate AI with the company’s Siri, Messaging, and Xcode apps.

Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet software and services, leads another team. That group is simply working to add the AI features to “as many apps as possible,” according to Bloomberg, including Music, Pages, Keynote, and customer service apps.

Apple’s existing AI efforts are limited

Apple has previously acknowledged that generative AI is an integral part of many of its products. However, most of those applications are limited to individual features such as auto-correct, speech transcription, and error detection.

The company has not yet released a publicly available AI assistant that competes directly with popular chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Bing. Apple’s equivalent chatbot, Ajax, is only being used internally at the company at present.

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