Expectations High for AI Update at Apple’s WWDC

Next Monday Apple will host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which I’ll be attending with my colleague Leo Gebbie. Everything points to the main story being the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities throughout the company’s products. This is little surprise given the AI hype transcending the technology sector. Apple has been soft-signalling its intent to talk more seriously about it for some months now, and WWDC feels like the time for a big unveiling.

With an extremely loyal set of users, Apple is in the fortunate position that it rarely needs to make knee-jerk changes to its devices and services. Its customers aren’t going to start dumping their iPhones just because Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel smartphones can offer translation, transcription or generative AI-powered photo editing. However, investors are focused on Apple’s competitiveness in AI, and Apple has been dialling up its story since the beginning of the year. We’ve heard numerous mentions of AI in earning reports, references to AI PCs in MacBook updates and a focus on AI at the recent iPad launch.

We expect that most features showcased at WWDC will be things we’ve seen before with examples including a host of improvements to photo editing and optimization, transcription and translation tools, deeper integration of AI into automatic responses to messages and chat tools, and improvements to a suite of apps including Apple Music, Fitness and Health to make them feel more personalized.

This might sound very similar to what we’ve seen from other smartphone-makers in recent months. The difference is that Apple’s strength in storytelling may leave consumers with the impression that it has created these “new” capabilities rather than just catching up with Samsung and others.

For example, I think there will be a very slick demo showing how easy it is to edit a photo using generative AI to remove people from backgrounds or add missing elements. Numerous Android smartphones already offer this, but if Apple does it, suddenly everyone will get excited.

Another product expected to get an update is Siri, and this is long overdue. In my limited experience using Siri, it feels more like talking with a pre-schooler than an intelligent voice assistant. The main reason I don’t use it much is because I always come away disappointed so I just don’t tend to bother anymore, other than for basic actions such as setting an alarm or timer.

Contrast this with the voice interface on OpenAI’s ChatGPT powered by the GPT-4o model and you start to understand why a much-rumoured partnership between Apple and OpenAI could make sense. I’ve been using the ChatGPT voice interface, and its understanding of questions and requests is the best I’ve experienced so far. If Apple has signed a deal to integrate GPT-4o with Siri, it could deliver a remarkable transformation in Siri’s performance — and emerge as arguably the biggest story from the event.

But before I get carried away, it’s important to note that ChatGPT currently uses a cloud-based model. This will be unacceptable to Apple given its focus on privacy and security, which is likely to be a central pillar in its overall messaging about the use of AI. To be viable, any deal here would need an on-device version of OpenAI’s large language model. Whether that’s feasible in the short time the two companies would have had to develop it is unclear.

As is customary, WWDC should also see updates to the operating systems underpinning Apple’s range of products.

Updates to macOS are likely to focus heavily on AI in a similar way to iOS and iPadOS. With the inception of the AI PC strategy from Microsoft, expect Apple to continue promoting benchmark tests that show Mac devices powered by Apple silicon outperforming PCs. It will also be fascinating to see if Apple opens up iPadOS any further to take advantage of the powerful silicon it’s putting inside its latest tablets; the disconnect between the hardware of the iPad and the software it runs is an increasingly difficult circle for Apple to square.

Another area of interest will be visionOS. Momentum for the Vision Pro virtual reality headset seems to have slowed, so it will be interesting to see what new features get unveiled. I believe there will be a pivot to enterprise applications, which have historically been a strong segment for spatial computing solutions. Additionally, we could see an announcement on when Vision Pro will reach markets outside the US, with the UK and Canada as likely candidates.

More details should also emerge about Apple’s support for Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging. The firm stated it would add this capability in November 2023, largely in response to growing regulatory scrutiny (see Apple Embraces RCS: The Devil Is in the Detail and the Reason Is the DMA). We expect a range of new features to be added to Apple’s messaging application including read receipts, typing indicators, location sharing, higher-quality images and videos. These will be supported over a data connection (cellular or Wi-Fi) rather than using the SMS infrastructure.

However, we don’t expect these capabilities to be integrated into iMessage at this point. Apple will undoubtedly point to what it considers weaker security when using RCS rather than iMessage, which it will claim is more secure. Things could change if the EU’s Digital Markets Act pushes Apple hard to open up iMessage, but we expect Apple to resist this for as long as possible.

This feels like a momentous WWDC. At a time when AI is transcending the tech industry, Apple is arguably on the back foot for the first time in a while. However, the company is no laggard and we expect it to come out fighting as it seeks to demonstrate how it can use AI to deliver meaningful improvements to its apps and services.

CCS Insight clients will receive a report with our analysis of WWDC shortly after the opening day’s keynote session. Please also follow me and my colleague Leo Gebbie on X for live updates from the show.