THE iPHONE MAKER MAY SEEM A LITTLE LATE TO THE AI PARTY, BUT THAT IS TYPICAL APPLE STRATEGY

As AI becomes part of nearly every tech headline right now, Apple faces increased criticism that it's late to the game. CEO Tim Cook even faced questions on the matter at Apple's most recent earnings call, and uncharacteristically hinted at Apple's future plans when responding to an analyst's question. Cook said Apple had long been working on AI tech and noted he was "excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year." For Apple watchers, that was a giant hint that the company is bringing AI to the forefront of its products. That supposition got some serious support with a fresh rumor that Apple was entering into some form of partnership with Google to leverage its Gemini AI product. If Apple goes all-in on AI, that will dramatically overhaul many people's online experiences, and change many businesses too. According to a recent Bloomberg report, Apple is currently amid "active negotiations" with Google. The deal, if it's reached, would license some of Gemini's features to power certain AI features in the new versions of Apple's iPhone and iPad software later this year, Apparently Apple is looking to bolster its image and text-based AI generation capabilities as quickly as it can. Google's Gemini AI system has been touted for its "multimodal" powers, meaning it can accept and also produce both text-based and image-based information. Multimodal AIs are more useful than simple text-based chatbots because one app allows the user to prompt the AI with, say, favorite colors and or example images and text to get it to, for example, dream up a new logo for your company. Though the image-producing part of Gemini did recently get Google into ethical trouble, it's likely just a wrinkle. A deal with Google to provide key aspects of the iPhone experience is also not unprecedented: Since the iPhone launched, Google had a deal with Apple to be its featured internet search provider in a partnership said to cost Google $18 billion a year. Demonstrating the extent to which Apple is leaping into the AI game, reports earlier this year said it had also quietly purchased a Canadian AI startup called DarwinAI, known for its efforts to make AI systems smaller and faster. This news tracks with Apple's overall user-privacy-centric ethos. Apple's priority of keeping AI systems operating on-device, rather than in the cloud -- as many other AIs do, including Google's -- may allow Apple to keep users' AI data more under their own control. By keeping it safely locked inside their phones' chips rather than running on a server far away, it creates a fundamental difference, very much in line with Apple's privacy sensibility. It's also been reported that Apple has been working on its own multimodal large language AI models, the same general style as Google Gemini. The company recently revealed details on its so-called "MM1" AI system, including insights into exactly how these models work. This isn't necessarily a sign Apple is embracing open source for its overall AI effort, however. It's merely an academic paper produced to share insights with other researchers into novel AI systems, which is fairly common practice. Add the Google deal, its purchase of DarwinAI, and the MM1 research news together and it paints a very clear picture: Apple is going big on AI this year. Though Apple has been criticized for being "late" to the AI game, it has actually been working on AI for years -- the entire Apple designed and made range of chips powering its mobile devices and Mac computers contain dedicated sections for processing machine learning, the math algorithms that underpin lots of AI models. Apple tends not to enter a market until it has done its own background work, then swooping in with a cutting-edge offering, the recent Vision Pro launch being an excellent example. It's possible to make a few informed guesses about how this move will impact the millions of developers that write Apple apps, as well as the many business users of Apple systems. Developers keen to seize the zeitgeist and leverage AI systems into their apps may find Apple directly supporting their coding efforts with dedicated AI API features -- little fragments of code that let app writers hook up directly to Apple's special systems. Meanwhile, business users of iPhones and perhaps Macs will find their systems mirror rival AI efforts, with more business-enabling intelligence embedded into software and hardware. That's a parallel to Microsoft's efforts, of course, with the PC software maker even pushing to have dedicated AI keys on new PC keyboards. With billions in capital to spend, could Apple become the leading AI company? Ask Siri, maybe. BY KIT EATON @KITEATON