Apple’s stock saw a brief boost on Wednesday following a report that the tech giant is developing its own large language model AI technology internally. The company’s share price rose around 1% during midday trading.
This move indicates Apple is taking recent advances in AI seriously and considering integrating them into future products. Unlike many tech firms, Apple rarely uses the term “artificial intelligence,” typically opting for the more academic “machine learning.”
Apple GPT: Apple’s Secret AI Project
Over the past year, large language models (LLMs) – AI systems that can generate human-like text and code – have captured the imagination of technologists and investors. According to the report, Apple has an internal AI foundation called Ajax, and a small team of engineers have built a chatbot nicknamed “Apple GPT.” Access to this chatbot is said to be limited within the company. Some Apple employees believe a major AI announcement could come next year.
How Apple uses machine learning in its products and services
Beyond LLMs, Apple already implements machine learning across its products, from Siri’s speech recognition to the Photos app’s ability to detect faces and pets.
In some ways, Apple is late to embrace the LLM trend. Microsoft has integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its software; Google has incorporated its Bard AI into Search; Amazon will offer LLMs through AWS; and Meta just open-sourced a large LLM project.
Qualcomm and Meta team up to challenge Apple’s LLMs
On Tuesday, Qualcomm – which makes processors for iPhones’ rival Android devices – announced a partnership with Meta to enable its LLMs to run directly on devices, rather than remotely in the cloud.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment on the report about its internal LLM development.