Apple's market value surged by $71 billion following reports of its clandestine development of an 'Apple GPT', designed to challenge OpenAI. The tech giant is stepping into the generative AI arena, vying alongside numerous competitors for OpenAI's supremacy in AI technology.
Bloomberg revealed that Apple has been covertly crafting a tool named Apple GPT, echoing ChatGPT - the renowned AI chatbot and formerly fastest-growing 'app'. This service was constructed on proprietary models from Ajax, a framework initially developed last year and utilising Google Cloud.
This move trails after the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI; this sparked widespread popularity and triggered other companies such as Microsoft and Google to launch their own versions. Despite being operational internally at Apple, it remains uncertain when Apple GPT will be publicly accessible due to security concerns causing intermittent progress.
Despite media focus on AI, it was noticeably absent from discussions during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June. Reports suggest that while substantial efforts are being made behind closed doors at Apple towards adopting more generative AIs into their products, they're not yet ready to reveal these plans publicly.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple has kept quiet about generative AIs but admits using ChatGPT himself. His reservations lie with security issues which need addressing before full adoption can occur.
Already incorporating machine learning across all devices via Siri – its virtual assistant – improvements have already been witnessed through the Ajax framework application. However commercialisation strategies for launching an initial chatbot based on Generative AI still pose challenges for the company.
Security seems to be a bottom line challenge too.
Apple's Covert Challenge to OpenAI