Apple's ChatGPT Rival Moves Forward, But Siri's Future Still Uncertain

[MacRumors]

More details have emerged regarding Apple's plans to dramatically improve Siri by leveraging large language models (LLMs) that will make it more conversational and capable of nuanced reasoning. Meanwhile, Apple's work on a ChatGPT competitor model is also moving forward.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the company is internally testing a broad range of models of varying complexity. Versions with 3 billion, 7 billion, 33 billion, and 150 billion parameters are now said to be "in active use."

Like ChatGPT, the 150 billion parameter model relies on the cloud, and its size means it is much more powerful than on-device Apple Intelligence, whose foundational models are 3 billion parameters.

With the help of an internal testing tool called "Playground," Apple has run benchmarks on the model that suggest it "approaches the quality of recent ChatGPT rollouts." However, there are still said to be concerns over its tendency to hallucinate. Meanwhile, "philosophical differences" remain among company executives, though Gurman provided no additional details on what they might be.

A previous report revealed that Apple has AI offices in Zurich, where employees are working on the all-new software architecture for Siri. The model is expected to eventually replace ‌Siri‌'s current "hybrid" architecture that has been incoherently layered up with different functionality.

Gurman reports that Apple is also testing a chatbot model dubbed "Knowledge" internally that can access the internet to gather and synthesize data from multiple sources. Presumably this would become another Siri capability, but the project is said to be led by Robby Walker, who recently saw Siri removed from his command. According to Gurman, employees familiar with the project say the chatbot project has also been dogged by the same problems that delayed the Siri overhaul.

It's still not clear when Apple will implement these technologies, and the company is unlikely to offer launch roadmaps at WWDC this month, given the blowback it received for announcing Apple Intelligence features at last year's conference that still have yet to launch.

In the meantime, Google's Gemini is expected to be added to iOS 26 as an alternative to ChatGPT in ‌Siri‌, and Apple is also said to be in talks with Perplexity to add their AI service as another option in the future, for both ‌Siri‌ and Safari search.

Article Link: Apple's ChatGPT Rival Moves Forward, But Siri's Future Still Uncertain

 

[vegetassj4]

“the 150 billion parameter model relies on the cloud,”

Siri: here’s what I found on the web

 

[ThinkDifferentTim]

just buy perplexity and put that in.

 

[RezSeeker]

i’ve been as frustrated as anyone with Siri, but I’m hopeful about this pivot.

 

[Stella]

just buy perplexity and put that in.

LOL.

Apple can't just buy any company they want...

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple have made some offers to buy some AI providers, and been refused.

 

[Plutonius]

Most people probably don't care which AI is used as long as it works and meets their needs.

 

[Jay Tee]

All I want from Apple ASAP is to protect my chatGPT privacy. Instant device upgrade.

 

[wanha]

LOL.

Apple can't just buy any company they want...

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple have made some offers to buy some AI providers, and been refused.

Agreed. Buying an established AI company isn't as simple as it sounds.

First of all, their valuations are insane, particularly considering not one of them has managed to turn profit, ever.

Second, many of the established AI companies already have Apple's competitors such as Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet as investors, and you can bet your lunch money that they do not want to sell to Apple.

Third, there are a LOT of unanswered copyright issues lingering around AI and for Apple to buy and AI outfit and integrate that into their products makes them potentially liable for huge copyright lawsuits down the line.

Apple may still have to go the route of buying an AI company, but let's all be clear that it will neither be cheap nor easy.

 

[contacos]

Needs a new name for one thing. The reputation of Siri has been ruined for years. It was a mistake to tie so much of Apple Intelligence to Siri in the first place. No matter how good it COULD be, people will always be put off by the association to Siri

 

[wanha]

this may be a controversial opinion, but I don't think Apple should rush it with AI.

No one is actually making money with it at the moment, and it's more important to get it right for the long haul than get it out fast.

AI's biggest business function at the moment is as a marketing tool, but that won't last forever.

AI will be a key component in the age of robotics we're about to enter, and Apple is poised to be a major player in that massive market - but only if they get their AI game right.

 

[0049190]

Apple should have scrapped Siri years ago and started from scratch with a new app.

 

[bergert]

“the 150 billion parameter model relies on the cloud,”

Siri: here’s what I found on the web

The GPT model can't even create subtitles correctly; i.e. with good quality.

70% are spot on, 90% are good, hallucination (text invented, never spoken, text repeated, repeated out of sequence, and overlong text invented). There is a saying that the last 20% of a project consume 80% of the time.

Would never consider this for anything serious, let alone feed it with my private data.

And yes, Siri is a joke - can't even search my Home sharing media.

 

[slashhyphendotdot]

Apple can't just buy any company they want...

No, but they can make offers.

Generally, though, Apple doesn't buy big companies (thinks like Beats are notable only because they are exceptions to the rule).

 

[Marbles1]

They're really struggling with AI/voice assistants. Definitely need to be careful on this one. Take the approach they have with Google search, and that they did with Google Maps - offer support and integration for an existing platform. Then gradually introduce their own.

They could go all out with Microsoft and be all 'let's share the stage together', some kind of tie up including on-device privacy as an option.

 

[H_D]

I think that a smart, integrated AI will work wonders for Apple. It's a brutal race, look the new Gemini and how OpenAI has to rush to react to that, and being a part of that race will stress Apple as they are late to the game and recently seem to have a history of not hitting the mark despite (or probably because of) their size and budgets. Integrating Siri as a personal assistant (along the lines of what Altman proposed last week) integrated into the OS will be a game changer. It's not about image generation (there are better tools), it's about a PA and seamless integrating that experience into the Apple ecosystem and connected Apps while maintaining at least SOME privacy. Google is well on the way with that, let's see what Apple can do.

 

[mthomas184]

No, but they can make offers.

How do you know they haven't though?

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Siri needs a rebrand. Drop the name, do something new. Its name has gotten so many years of bad press, unless they drastically fix it soon they will need a new branding for it to make a clean break from the past. See if "Charlie" passes the sniff test, haha.

 

[klasma]

this may be a controversial opinion, but I don't think Apple should rush it with AI.

No one is actually making money with it at the moment, and it's more important to get it right for the long haul than get it out fast.

The more useful AI is available on Android, the more it hurts Apple. I don’t think that they have a lot of time to lose.

 

[burgman]

this may be a controversial opinion, but I don't think Apple should rush it with AI.

No one is actually making money with it at the moment, and it's more important to get it right for the long haul than get it out fast.

AI will be a key component in the age of robotics we're about to enter, and Apple is poised to be a major player in that massive market - but only if they get their AI game right.

Plus the strain and cost for power infrastructure that everyone pays for. Musk's xAI center for Grok in Memphis is a good example. Community stress and pollution from his non-permitted methane gas turbines until local utility could build a substation.
For the first time in a along time, because US is exporting so much LPG, coal burning is increasing again.

 

[iZac]

Even though Apple will continue developing an AI Assistant, the Siri brand has to die. It's just synonymous with failure.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

They're really struggling with AI/voice assistants. Definitely need to be careful on this one. Take the approach they have with Google search, and that they did with Google Maps - offer support and integration for an existing platform. Then gradually introduce their own.

They could go all out with Microsoft and be all 'let's share the stage together', some kind of tie up including on-device privacy as an option.

I could be wrong, but for the most part isn’t Microsoft copilot offerings just a ChatGPT wrapper?
That doesn’t really add much.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

The more useful AI is available on Android, the more it hurts Apple. I don’t think that they have a lot of time to lose.

Every AI that’s available on android is also already available on iOS and macOS.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

However, there are still said to be concerns over its tendency to hallucinate.

This is the one thing Apple cannot and should not allow their LLM to do, whatever form it will take.

Now, if it's possible to make an LLM that do not hallucinate, with today's technology, is still an open question. I tend to believe it's not possible in a general purpose LLM, but possible for one that's specifically trained in an area. The former is basically how Chat-GPT, Gemini, Claude, et. al. works now, the latter I don't think we've seen, yet.

And therein lies Apple largest opportunity, IMHO, if - and that's a big if - they can get this right.

My worry is that they - in a haste to "get to market", exemplified by last year with the ads for a "personalised" Siri - will release something that just isn't good enough. (It may be on par with the best LLMs, which is possible for an "upstart" as shown by Deepseek, but as long as it hallucinates, and thus cannot be trusted, it's just not good enough.)

 

[ThinkDifferentTim]

Agreed. Buying an established AI company isn't as simple as it sounds.

First of all, their valuations are insane, particularly considering not one of them has managed to turn profit, ever.

Second, many of the established AI companies already have Apple's competitors such as Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet as investors, and you can bet your lunch money that they do not want to sell to Apple.

Third, there are a LOT of unanswered copyright issues lingering around AI and for Apple to buy and AI outfit and integrate that into their products makes them potentially liable for huge copyright lawsuits down the line.

Apple may still have to go the route of buying an AI company, but let's all be clear that it will neither be cheap nor easy.

Sure. But they did buy SuperAI Siri too They should buy OpenAI, just to get Jony back, so he can make the iPhone Air thinner 😆

 

[Hicksmat1976]

Apple's speech to text (dictation) sucks, and it's always sucked. I can't get too excited about Apple's AI features if they can't even get dictation working.