# Apple’s new vision: artificial intelligence at the heart of its products

Author: Fernando Nieto Lobato
Original publication: 2024-06-12
Spanish original: https://estrategiabyaleph.substack.com/p/estrategia-37-apple-pone-la-inteligencia
English URL: https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/essays/037/
Status: Published translation

This is a translation of the original Spanish essay published on 12 June 2024. Its claims, examples and forecasts retain that historical context.

English publication: 2026-09-29

*English edition note: this article was published on 12 June 2024 and discusses Apple’s event on 10 June. It preserves the original’s descriptions and expectations at that time, including its later reference to “yesterday”. The Tim Cook quotation is translated from Spanish; the original English wording has not been independently checked.*

Last Monday, 10 June, Apple, a company that had been far behind in artificial intelligence, sent a message to the world at its eagerly awaited annual event, WWDC 2024. This AI-centred spectacle not only showcased the company’s technological advances, but also made clear how it intends to compete with giants such as Google and Microsoft. The event stands as a beacon pointing towards a future in which AI is more than a tool: it is the very heart of Apple’s innovation.

[![Apple Intelligence announcement with five iPhone feature demonstrations, its main English text transcribed below.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/ad4ae7be-ee0f-421d-a16e-f5e02ad98a06_1600x1129.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!N4Mp!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fad4ae7be-ee0f-421d-a16e-f5e02ad98a06_1600x1129.png)

*Original English announcement: “Introducing Apple Intelligence”. “The next big step for Apple is here. Apple Intelligence is personal intelligence built into your iPhone, iPad, and Mac to help you write, express yourself, and get things done effortlessly.¹ All while setting a brand-new standard for privacy in AI.” Button: “Explore the preview”. The screenshot shows writing tools, image creation, Siri’s phone interface, a Photos memory-movie tool and a prioritised inbox. The memory examples include “Everything we ate in Japan”, “Leo trick-or-treating with a spooky vibe” and “Last summer in our garden”. The footnote marker is visible, but its text is outside the preserved image.*

Those of us who are AI enthusiasts had hoped to see more revolutionary advances, and models or tools that went a step beyond what had already been shown at OpenAI’s, Google’s and Microsoft’s conferences last May. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Yet Apple, at its own pace and in its own distinctive way, has decided to go all in on AI, to the point of calling it “Apple Intelligence”: an artificial intelligence that is, by design, less technical, revolutionary and visible, and more approachable, private and integrated into everyday life. We will see how this strategic bet works over the long term, because it did not get off to a particularly good start. Apple ended the day down almost 2% on the stock market, probably because of expectations that it would demonstrate unique AI capabilities — something that, apart from the incredible iPad calculator, did not happen.

In any case, for those who are not enthusiasts of Apple and its products and did not watch the event, here is a brief summary of its main developments and, above all, its approach to AI.

## Apple’s rebirth: the era of “Apple Intelligence”

With a smile revealing confidence and a touch of excitement, Tim Cook, Apple’s charismatic CEO, took the stage to announce the arrival of “Apple Intelligence”. This is more than a fashionable term: it is a vision of a future in which AI not only improves our devices, but makes them more human. Cook told the audience how Apple had been weaving AI into every fibre of its DNA, promising an experience beyond incremental improvements. “We are entering a new era,” Cook said.

The crown jewel, as every year, given the roughly 1.2 billion iPhone users, was the presentation of iOS 18, a version of the operating system that promises to make our lives easier and our interactions more natural through AI. For productivity enthusiasts, macOS 15 and iPadOS 18 bring an arsenal of AI-powered tools that promise to transform how we work. The star is a new writing assistant that not only corrects errors but suggests stylistic and contextual improvements, effortlessly bringing your emails and documents up to a professional standard. This is not very different from what Google or Microsoft already do, but coming from Apple it will probably be easier to use, attractive and intuitive — and probably more expensive too.

## Siri, at the centre of the shift towards AI

After years without genuine capabilities as an assistant, Apple’s voice assistant Siri will now gradually fulfil the true potential for which it was originally conceived. The new Siri does not simply follow orders: it anticipates your needs, offering suggestions based on your behaviour and preferences. It can coordinate tasks across applications, organise meetings, send invitations and adjust your calendar, all autonomously. This capacity for anticipation and action is more than a technological advance: it is a small but significant leap towards a future in which virtual assistants are not merely tools, but digital companions that understand us and help us proactively.

The Siri we saw yesterday is still far from the genuinely autonomous agents we are beginning to glimpse from other companies such as OpenAI. But despite starting a long way behind, it seems to be moving in the right direction. Considering Apple’s entire ecosystem, combining that with AI development is a distinguishing factor.

## On-device AI and GPT-4 through a partnership with OpenAI

As for how AI is integrated into its devices, the most interesting aspect is the ability to run large language models directly on devices such as iPhones and iPads. This innovation relies on an advanced technique for using flash memory, allowing these models to operate efficiently without a constant connection to the cloud. This capability is crucial for applications requiring rapid responses and for protecting user privacy, since data need not leave the device. For more advanced AI applications, however, Apple sealed a long-rumoured partnership with OpenAI to incorporate GPT-4, allowing controlled access from its devices. This collaboration gives Apple users access to ChatGPT’s capabilities integrated into their operating systems, facilitating tasks such as generating text, creating automatic summaries and assisting with coding.

Beyond technical details and presentations, **the most significant aspect of this event is Apple’s comprehensive commitment to AI across all its operating systems**, giving another major boost to the **worldwide popularisation of this technology** by bringing it to devices used, in total, by nearly a quarter of the world’s population. **Perhaps the least innovative conference of the past two months will prove the most important because of the way it will subtly introduce AI into everyone’s minds and pockets, making the shift towards a new society subtle but unstoppable.**

Fernando Nieto Lobato

*Director of Digital Innovation at the ALEPH Educational Institution*