7 things Apple might do with generative AI

Main points

• Siri may get improvements at WWDC
• Better predictive text in AI messages
• AI-enhanced photo editing and app development is underway

It’s not often that Apple finds itself playing catch-up. However, the company falls seriously behind many of its competitors when it comes to generating artificial intelligence. That’s somewhat understandable; no one really knew AI capabilities would explode the way they have in recent years, but while other companies were quickly jumping on the bandwagon with huge success, Apple was dragging its feet.

But things are starting to happen. Apple has been investing in artificial intelligence and has hired dozens of employees to work on generative AI at the company. We are likely to make some important announcements related to artificial intelligence and Apple products at Apple’s WWDC event in June this year.

How will Apple incorporate the power of artificial intelligence into its products? To know for sure, we’ll have to wait until this summer, but there are some rumors that offer clues as to what we can expect. Here are some of the things Apple might plan to do with generative AI.

1 Make Siri truly useful

she can be smarter

When Siri first appeared on the iPhone 4S back in 2011, it promised a new dawn of voice assistants that would forever change the way we interact with our phones. Unfortunately, Siri doesn’t quite live up to these expectations. Voice assistants have stagnated, in part because database designs make adding new content a time-consuming process.

However, Siri may finally see her performance improve significantly for the first time since her debut. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Siri is being revamped to implement the artificial intelligence system currently being developed by Apple. This should improve Siri’s ability to respond to questions or commands.

This may also mean that Siri will be able to perform multi-step tasks. This will save users from having to create their own multi-step tasks in the Shortcuts app. Amazon has already announced a similar upcoming feature for Alexa that will let you create multi-step routines using your voice, so the voice assistant may soon become even more useful.

2 Improve autocomplete functionality in messages

Sentence prediction should be much better

One place where machine learning is already being used on iPhones and other Apple devices is in autocorrect. Your phone can correct spelling mistakes and suggest the next word you want to type.

Other AI models like ChatGPT have shown that generative AI is really good at predicting what will happen next in a line of text. In fact, this is the basis of how text-based generative AI works. Essentially, it just predicts the most likely response to any given prompt. Using generative AI in apps like Messaging should mean your predictive text dodges better.

3 Create an Apple Music playlist

Use tips to create playlists in seconds

Spotify has beaten Apple here, already offering AI DJs on the app. Some Spotify users have also field-tested AI-generated playlists. Apple will likely follow suit and harness the power of generative AI to create playlists.

You can already get playlists based on your listening preferences in the Apple Music app, such as New Music Mix and Discovery Station. However, generative AI might allow you to create your own playlist with prompts like “90s downtempo indie diva” and have a playlist magically created by the power of AI.

4 Make your photos better

AI editing to transform your photos

When the Google Pixel 8 Pro launched, Google went all-out to promote the smartphone’s artificial intelligence capabilities, especially when it came to the camera. Magic Editor allows you to delete objects, reposition photo subjects, and change lighting with the power of artificial intelligence. It also has a “Best Shot” feature that combines several similar photos to ensure everyone looks their best and you don’t ruin an otherwise perfect photo because one person has their eyes closed.

Apple will likely introduce similar AI capabilities to the Photos app, allowing you to quickly and easily edit photos or automatically improve them. For example, the Photos app already includes the ability to remove red-eye in photos taken with flash. This can likely be detected and automatically fixed using artificial intelligence.

5 Help developers code faster

Autocomplete in Xcode

Apple’s generative AI won’t just benefit Apple end users. It also helps developers create applications more easily. That’s because, according to Mark Gurman, Apple is considering adding generative artificial intelligence to application development tools like Xcode. This will allow AI to predict what a line of code will say, speeding up the coding process for Apple product apps.

Autocomplete suggestions are similar to how apps come up with suggestions to automatically complete entire lines of text. By using the powerful prediction skills of artificial intelligence, the feature will provide the most likely ending for a line of code, allowing coders to press a key and automatically complete the line of code. Just like text, this saves a lot of time and allows developers to get their apps to market faster.

6 Make you more productive

Will AI come to Pages, Numbers and Keynote?

Microsoft is far ahead of Apple when it comes to artificial intelligence. The company has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and is reaping the benefits. In fact, Microsoft’s forward thinking on artificial intelligence has allowed the company to surpass Apple as the world’s most valuable company in early 2024, thanks in large part to its investments in artificial intelligence.

Microsoft has integrated its Copilot AI into many of its products, including Microsoft 365 apps. For example, in Word, you can use Copilot to generate a first draft of a document, which you can then edit to suit your needs. In Excel, Copilot can help you create data visualizations or analyze patterns in your data.

Apple has its own suite of productivity apps, such as Pages and Keynote. Generative AI will almost certainly be used to improve these apps in a similar way to what Microsoft is doing, making it faster and easier to complete tasks when you use them.

7 Improve customer service

Solve complex problems faster

When a problem occurs, you can contact Apple customer service for help. However, it is unreasonable to expect call center operators to know in detail every possible solution to every possible problem with every possible Apple product.

However, Apple has been testing a tool called Ask, which uses generative artificial intelligence to create responses for customer service agents based on Apple’s own knowledge database. This tool is designed to help solve complex problems faster. This means that the next time you call the Apple helpline, you may get a faster solution to your problem.