Faced with the surging wave of AI, both Cook and Apple couldn't sit still.
On February 29th, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at the annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday that he plans to disclose more plans to use generative artificial intelligence later this year, further joining the industry boom.
Cook stated that generative artificial intelligence has incredible breakthrough potential and will bring transformative opportunities for users in areas such as productivity and problem-solving, which is why Apple is currently investing heavily in this field.
This is in stark contrast to his previous relatively cautious attitude. Although he has publicly stated that the big language model has "enormous potential," he also warned that there may be bias and misinformation, and Apple will only add artificial intelligence to more products after "careful consideration.".
With the new trend of consumer electronics products such as AI smartphones and AIPCs, there are many possibilities for artificial intelligence to be implemented in Apple's mature product ecosystem. "Every Mac equipped with an Apple chip is an exceptionally powerful AI machine. In fact, there is no better AI computer on the market today," Cook said.
In addition, he also mentioned that the current features using Apple's artificial intelligence technology include Vision Pro's hand tracking tool and Apple Watch's heart rate alarm.
In the current big model competition, large technology companies such as Google and Meta have already released their own big language models and other generative artificial intelligence products. In this regard, Apple's public progress appears to be somewhat slow, but multiple signals indicate that the company is accelerating its deployment of this technology.
In July 2023, Bloomberg reported that Apple had built its own framework "Ajax" internally to create large language models. Based on "Ajax", Apple has also created a chatbot service. After Apple decided to abandon the car development project, some relevant personnel were also transferred to the artificial intelligence research and development department.
Apple's application of artificial intelligence technology has always been a focus of external attention. Prior to the shareholders' meeting, Apple's eighth and tenth largest shareholders, Norwegian Bank Investment Management, and Legal&, the largest life insurance provider in the UK; General publicly stated that they will support a proposal at Apple's annual shareholder meeting to report on the artificial intelligence situation in its business operations.
This proposal clearly did not comply with Apple's consistent principle of confidentiality prior to product release and was ultimately rejected at the annual shareholder meeting.
Apple stated in its annual meeting disclosure that "the requested report scope is too broad and may include disclosure of strategic plans and measures that are detrimental to our competitive position."
But Cook stated at the meeting that artificial intelligence has already played a role behind Apple's products, and later this year, there will be more news about the clear use of AI features.