Huatai Securities: Apple AI opens a new era of AI native applications

According to the information from Zhitong Finance and Economics APP, Huatai Securities released a research report stating that, compared to the experiential innovation of AI products, the significance of Apple's AI applications lies more in: 1) Based on localized data, Apple's AI can truly focus on users, seamlessly integrate into users' daily experiences, or deeply change users' AI usage habits, with the penetration rate of AI-related applications expected to increase; 2) Based on Apple's powerful ecosystem, data between different hardware can be seamlessly linked while also considering privacy protection, which is expected to enhance the user experience of AI functions, with the frequency and duration of AI application usage expected to continue to increase.

Key Points from Huatai Securities:

Apple Intelligence Opens a New Era of Native AI Applications

At the 2024 WWDC, Apple will introduce "Apple Intelligence", using artificial intelligence and machine learning to prioritize notifications, provide intelligent writing tools, create custom images, and automatically perform cross-application operations to enhance user experience. We believe that, compared to the experiential innovation of AI products, the significance of Apple's AI applications lies more in: 1) Based on localized data, Apple's AI can truly focus on users, seamlessly integrate into users' daily experiences, or deeply change users' AI usage habits, with the penetration rate of AI-related applications expected to increase; 2) Based on Apple's powerful ecosystem, data between different hardware can be seamlessly linked while also considering privacy protection, which is expected to enhance the user experience of AI functions, with the frequency and duration of AI application usage expected to continue to increase.

Siri Upgraded to AI Intelligent Assistant, Expected to Become a New Traffic Entry Point

Apple will deeply integrate Siri with APPs, evolving Siri from a voice assistant to an AI intelligent assistant with multimodal capabilities. We believe that, compared to other AI intelligent assistants, the new version of Siri has the following advantages: 1) Access to local data: capable of performing relatively complex tasks across apps, such as sending specific photos to designated users through apps; 2) Strong interaction capabilities: Siri has significantly improved in language understanding capabilities, while also possessing powerful multimodal interaction, supporting the joint processing of various information including images, voice, and text based on screen perception capabilities; 3) Personalization: Using the user's personal contextual information, Siri provides more personalized assistance, such as finding specific information or adding new contacts. We believe that the upgraded Siri has the functionality of a personal intelligent assistant, can access localized information across apps, and is expected to enhance user experience.

AI Tools Empower Apple's Native Applications, with Potential for Scene Expansion

In terms of tools, Apple Intelligence integrates multimodal AI content generation capabilities and introduces new applications, including: 1) Intelligent Writing +Writing Tools, which can help users rewrite, proofread, summarize text, generate meeting minutes, etc., and this function can be applied to email, memos, Safari, Pages, Keynote, and third-party apps; 2) AI Image + Image Playground: Users can search and modify specific photos in the album through voice commands, and they can also create images through Image Playground. The generated images can be used in apps such as Pages, Freeform, and Notes. We believe that Apple's AI functions integrated into frequently used scenarios such as albums and information emails. On one hand, AI applications are expected to penetrate from AI tools to AI content. On the other hand, current AI tools such as image recognition, image and text generation significantly enhance user work efficiency in education, office, and creative content production scenarios, with the potential to expand to more scenarios in the future.

Apple's China region is expected to access domestic large models, and AI multimodal is expected to accelerate development

Apple will provide the ChatGPT interface in Siri, allowing users to directly use GPT-4o through Siri for free without registration. Additionally, users can call ChatGPT in all system writing tools to achieve functions like chatbots. ChatGPT will soon be available in the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS. Besides GPT-4o, Apple is also considering gradually accessing other large models. Considering factors such as language and network restrictions, Apple's intelligence in the Chinese region may access domestic AI large models. We believe that in the past 24 years, the rapid development of domestic AI large models and applications, such as Wenxin Yiyuan, Kimi, Jieyue Xingchen, Tiangong large models, has received continuous attention. With the launch of Apple's intelligence in the Chinese region, it is expected to accelerate the development of high-quality domestic AI large models and applications. The 24th year is the year of AI multimodal, and we continue to be optimistic about the development opportunities of multimodal AI applications.

Risk Warning:

Application development progress falls short of expectations, model capabilities fall short of expectations, industry policy risks