Companies are rushing to compete in the AI race, but not Apple, which has remained largely silent on expanding into chatbots and generative AI-powered programs.
On Thursday, CEO Tim Cook addressed the company's absence and signaled that the iPhone maker is going to take a slower, but more “thoughtful” route to developing AI products.
“I do think it’s very important to be deliberate and thoughtful in how you approach these things, and there’s a number of issues that need to be sorted,” Cook said in a Thursday earnings call.
Although Cook didn’t elaborate on the issues, there’s been growing concern that AI programs could disrupt society by replacing numerous jobs, or be exploited to pump out propaganda and run scams on a much larger scale.
Despite the challenges, Cook added: “The potential is certainly very interesting.” He declined to tease any product roadmaps around generative AI, but Cook cited Apple’s ongoing effort to “weave” AI-powered features into its consumer products, such as the fall and crash detection in the Apple Watch and iPhone.
“So we are—we view AI as huge. We’ll continue weaving into our products on a very thoughtful basis,” Cook said. Interestingly, though, he neglected to mention Siri, one of the first voice assistants that briefly dominated the market a decade ago, although Apple is rumored to be working on an upgrade for Siri.
Overall, Cook spent little time talking about AI during the earnings call. It's possible Cupertino may be preoccupied with another rumored product. It's reportedly preparing to announce a VR headset at its annual developer conference, WWDC, next month, which could revitalize interest in the virtual reality space.
Still, Apple may risk falling behind its competitors in the generative AI race. This was underscored at a White House meeting on Thursday devoted to developing AI responsibly. Only the CEOs from OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Anthropic, which is made up of former OpenAI staff, attended the meeting. Facebook’s parent Meta and Apple were not invited.