Apple investors are reacting strongly to the company’s WWDC announcements, with positive sentiment towards iOS 18 and the Apple Intelligence unveiling in particular. AAPL company stock hit new all time highs today in intraday trading, topping $205, up 6% on the day.
Following months of narrative of Apple being behind in AI, the buzzy topic for tech investing right now, Apple demonstrated its strengths with a series of relevant customer features that integrates artificial intelligence throughout the iPhone experiences.
Apple Intelligence, starting with iOS 18 later this year with additional features rolling out across the start of next year, brings generative AI technology to Apple’s billion-strong customer base.
Apple Intelligence uses a combination of on-device and cloud models. Users can be assisted with their writing with proofreading and text generation features, clarify their notifications with automatic summaries and prioritization, generate emojis and cartoon images on the fly, and more.
Apple Intelligence will also power a wholly new incarnation of Siri, which will be more personal and much more contextually aware.
Apple said that all Apple Intelligence features will be offered for free, but investors are likely betting that the roadmap will help pull forward iPhone upgrades, with the iPhone 16 cycle kicking off this fall. They also are generally adjusting their expectations, after worries that Apple would be left behind rivals like Microsoft and Google in the era of AI.
The company also showed how it is integrating ChatGPT deeply into the iOS and Mac experience, as a fallback when Apple Intelligence models cannot adequately respond to the user’s query. It’s currently unclear what the financial relationship between Apple and OpenAI is, but it seems like a long-term monetization opportunity for Apple, akin to the search deal that sees Google pay $20bn per year to be the default search engine in Safari.
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