Apple Intelligence will initially be available in the United States, but Tim Cook plans to expand it abroad.
Apple has done it again. Whenever a new technological development comes out, Apple doesn’t take a position right away. Instead, it sits back and watches how competitors behave, and then offers its original take. With artificial intelligence, Apple did the same thing. On June 10th, however, CEO Tim Cook announced the company’s AI vision called “Apple Intelligence”.
Apple Intelligence was met with enthusiasm almost immediately, and Wall Street investors jumped at the opportunity. Yesterday, Apple posted its second-quarter earnings, showing a decline in iPhone sales in China. Despite that, Apple’s stock price increased as Tim Cook boasted the company’s AI investments.
The new technology will be embedded into Apple products and will be available in the United States next autumn. With Apple Intelligence, AI features will be sprinkled across several apps, from Images to Notes to Mail.
Siri will receive an update, becoming an AI chatbot on the model of ChatGPT and Gemini. Apple partnered with both OpenAI and Google to develop Apple Intelligence, though the details of such collaboration were not released.
Apple Intelligence features will include AI writing tools for summarizing or "writing something" in Notes, condensing long e-mails, and searching for specific pictures in the gallery, such as "A picture of me with sunglasses".
It will also be possible to turn audio transcripts into a list of points or a summary.
When will Apple Intelligence be available outside the US?
During Thursday’s investor call, Tim Cook was asked when Apple Intelligence will be available in the European Union and China, Apple’s second and third-biggest markets respectively.
Tim Cook’s response was rather vague, saying Apple is currently working with regulators from both institutions to ensure a local release “As fast as possible”.
“We’re engaged, as you would guess, with both regulatory bodies that you mentioned,” Cook said, “and our objective is to move as fast as we can, obviously, because our objective is always to get features out there for everyone.”
“We have to understand the regulatory requirements before we can commit to doing that and commit a schedule to doing that, but we’re very constructively engaged with both.”
The EU’s AI Act officially entered into force yesterday, regulating the usage of artificial intelligence into the block on a “risk-based” framework. The riskier the use, for instance in products like self-driving vehicles or medical tools, the stricter the regulations.
Moreover, Apple said that, at its current state, Apple Intelligence would be blocked into the EU over violations of its privacy and copyright laws.
Cook said more languages will be added to Apple Intelligence, likely signaling the company’s intention to open to Europe and China too. The timeline for such expansion, however, remains blurry.
