Apple brings ChatGPT to Siri as it debuts

Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, announced a series of generative artificial intelligence products and services on Monday during his keynote speech at the company's annual developer conference, WWDC, including "Apple Intelligence" and a deal with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

The new tools mark a major shift toward AI for Apple, which has seen slowing global sales over the past year and integrated fewer AI features into its consumer-facing products than competitors.

Apple's new artificial intelligence system involves a range of generative AI tools aimed at creating an automated, personalized experience on its devices. The demonstration showed the company's AI would be integrated throughout the operating systems on its Mac laptops, iPad tablets and iPhones, as well as be able to pull information from and take action within apps.

The company also confirmed its much-anticipated partnership with OpenAI during the keynote, announcing that Apple would integrate ChatGPT technology into responses from a new version of its voice assistant Siri. Executives promised would feature a "more natural, more contextually relevant and more personal" experience. The new Siri will be able to function as an AI chatbot and receive written instructions, and also has the ability to take actions within apps based on voice prompts. Apple promised that Siri would be able to look through your emails, texts and photos to find specific information based on relevant context.

An Apple executive demonstrated that the company's AI could, for instance, pick out the word "daughter" from an email and connect it to the matching phone contact. Apple Intelligence also has the ability to summarize notifications, emails and texts. A group chat that involves figuring out trip planning could be shortened to a single message that conveys who booked a hotel and when to arrive, according to the demo. A new image generation tool, meanwhile, allows users to create unique emoji reactions, while the new Image Playground feature can create more complex visuals in several different styles.

The company also announced an updated operating system for its Vision Pro headset. The virtual reality device, which has only been available in the US since its release in February, will become available in China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, France and the United Kingdom in the next two months.

Apple said it would adopt Rich Communication Services to improve messaging between iPhones and other smartphones as well as expanding customization options for iMessage. Phones running Google's Android operating system have long employed the messaging protocol. More incremental updates from WWDC included a redesigned photos app, hiking maps in Apple Maps, tweaks to the Wallet app, customization options for texting, and texting via satellite in locations without cell tower connections.