ChatGPT joins the Apple ecosystem

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Liu Baodan

Apple officially "marries" OpenAI, and Apple Intelligence has finally found its soul.

On December 12, also the fifth day of OpenAI's year-end AI Spring Festival, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT has been fully integrated into Apple, including iPhone, iPad, and Mac, allowing Apple devices that support Apple Intelligence to enable ChatGPT functionality. On the same day, Apple released system updates for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on the X platform, stating: Now you can use ChatGPT with just one button!

The intelligent voice assistant Siri is the most direct window for Apple users to trigger ChatGPT.

It is reported that Apple users can wake up Siri in almost any application. By double-clicking the command key, the Siri prompt box can be summoned, and when Siri determines that the task is too complex, the system will ask if assistance from ChatGPT is needed, handing over the difficult problem to ChatGPT.

Some have described Siri after this update as "reborn." It is reported that when users pose complex questions, such as planning travel itineraries or needing other technical support, Siri will leverage the power of ChatGPT to provide smarter and more detailed answers.

In addition, Apple has also been endowed with ChatGPT's visual intelligence capabilities. When users take photos or select images from their albums, the camera control function will perform a preliminary analysis of the image, extracting key elements such as people, objects, and scenes. This information is then passed to ChatGPT for further understanding and processing.

Apple stated that the large model integrated this time uses OpenAI's GPT-4o model. Regarding the highly concerned privacy aspect, Apple has built privacy protection features into the relevant functions, ensuring that OpenAI does not store user requests, and that the AI only calls ChatGPT when running on local devices to ensure complete data control.

Apple users do not need an OpenAI account to use the integrated ChatGPT, but users can pay for the upgraded version of ChatGPT through Apple. Additionally, users can access ChatGPT through some text menus.

However, Apple Intelligence is still not supported in mainland China and is primarily open to users in specific English-speaking regions.

According to Apple's previously announced plan, the English version of Apple Intelligence launched in the U.S. market in October this year and will gradually expand to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and other countries and regions starting in December. Next year, Apple Intelligence will update to include other language versions such as Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish The news that Apple will cooperate with OpenAI was made public at this year's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. At that time, Apple, which was making slow progress in AI large models, announced plans to deeply integrate ChatGPT into its product matrix.

The market also expects Apple to redefine user behavior in edge-side AI and drive a wave of hardware upgrades.

In October, Apple officially released the first wave of Apple Intelligence features, but the writing tools, newly designed Siri (with marquee lighting effects), and notification summaries did not bring much surprise to the outside world.

For Apple, the integration of ChatGPT is undoubtedly a milestone event, marking a critical step in its AI terminal strategy and truly grounding the selling points of the iPhone 16 series.

Many investors pointed out that as Apple continues to add new features, it will boost iPhone sales, drive upgrade cycles, and potentially solidify Apple's leading position in consumer-facing artificial intelligence.

2024 is set to be the "AI smartphone year," and no one dares to be absent from this round of competition. In this race, Samsung has fired the first shot for AI smartphones, while Huawei, OPPO, Honor, vivo, and others continue to make strides, and Apple, which has arrived late, has now officially joined this track.

A common consensus is that generative AI will have a revolutionary impact on the smartphone market, and AI smartphones are expected to quickly penetrate the mobile phone market.

According to data from CCID Consulting, the global shipment of new AI smartphones is estimated to be around 50 million units in 2023, and by 2024, the shipment of AI smartphones is expected to reach 150 million units, accounting for 13% of the total global smartphone shipments. By 2027, global sales of AI smartphones are expected to exceed 50%.

However, there is currently no true winner emerging in the AI smartphone race, and whether Apple can maintain its king status in the global market remains uncertain