The biggest Apple WWDC announcements from Apple Intelligence to iOS 18

Amid sustained AI hype, Apple is taking a measured approach to integrating AI features into its software. The focus, the company said, was to build “generative models” into the core of its products to simplify tasks.

That means the company’s Apple Intelligence will let you handle table-stakes tasks like rewriting and summarizing text, as well as generating images on-demand. But it also taps into personal information you’ve stored on your device, and draws from what it sees on your screen, when it could be helpful.

In one example Federighi described, iOS could use its understanding of traffic at a given time, a user’s calendar, and data from the device’s GPS to see if a person could make it to a specific event on time.

If there was one standout AI feature on display, it was an updated version of the Siri virtual assistant Apple first launched on its iPhones in 2011.

All demos were described or prerecorded, and the features will not be available to the public until at least this fall, so it’s unclear how accurate they are. But in addition to being a natural conversation partner, Siri could interact with files and activate specific features inside apps when asked. It will also serve as a launching point for some of the AI features baked into other corners of Apple’s software. Users could ask Siri, for example, to automatically retouch photos, or add those photos into a new file in the Notes app.

In some cases, Siri can also call in a little help to tackle your requests. It can tap into ChatGPT’s GPT-4o model — though it will ask your permission before passing anything along to the chatbot. After that, Siri will pass ChatGPT’s response back to you verbatim. At least some of these features will be available only on higher-end devices, such as the iPhone 15 Pro series.

Some AI features require data to be ferried to remote servers for processing rather than being handled solely on the devices. To mitigate privacy risks, Apple says it has developed servers running on its own Apple silicon chips.

Apple also says its AI tools will be free, though it’s unclear whether it will eventually charge for access. Samsung, which already launched AI features in its newest Galaxy phones, only guarantees they’ll be free until the end of 2025.

Monday’s announcements couldn’t come soon enough for the company. Since the beginning of the year, Apple — once the most valuable company in the world by market cap — has fallen behind Microsoft and Nvidia, two firms that have seen their fortunes flourish thanks to a brewing AI revolution. During that same period, Apple also began to wind down its decades-long work on an autonomous electric car, with many staffers on that project being shifted to work on the company’s burgeoning AI efforts.