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The Apple chatbot integrations are stacking up.
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If you’re disappointed that the only AI model that will integrate with Apple devices so far will be ChatGPT, it sounds like you won’t have to wait long for that to change. Apple will announce “at least” one other deal — to add Google Gemini, too — this fall, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter today.
Gemini has been part of the iOS 18 chatbot rumors for as long as OpenAI has. Apple software boss Craig Federighi even hinted at a Google deal shortly after the keynote was over. Anthropic has been mixed up in these rumors as well, and Gurman also suggests Apple could announce a deal with that company at some point, if not this fall. Meta, though, was quickly rejected because its Llama chatbot just isn’t good enough, he writes.
Beyond chatbot integration lies Apple Intelligence, which is only supposed to emerge, initially, in beta form this fall. Apple reportedly wants to make AI an avenue for direct profits, not just as a set of features aimed at moving hardware products. As part of that, Gurman suggests that the company “could eventually” roll out subscription-only Apple Intelligence features.
But it seems like that won’t happen for a while, and although Apple Intelligence is only available for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max for now, who knows if the version of it that comes first will be enough to drive a big iPhone upgrade cycle. We don’t even know if the features will be good, after all. In the meantime, he points out that Apple will still get at least some AI money when it gets its in-app purchases cut of sign-ups to its AI partners’ chatbot subscriptions.
Third-party AI services might serve as a nice stopgap for the Cupertino company while it slowly rolls out its own generative AI system. For the rest of us, that will mean more choice, even if having the choice, in a lot of ways, just means variations on the theme of algorithmic reconstruction of compressed data (or at least the possibility of entertainingly wrong cooking suggestions).