In an interesting turn of events, Apple is reportedly in talks with Google about using its Gemini Large Language Model (LLM) to power artificial intelligence (AI) features on the iPhone. The development comes just days after the iPhone maker reportedly purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI ahead of the reveal of iOS 18 this summer, which would bring big AI features to the iPhone.
Read also: Apple iPhone 16 leak hints at upgraded neural engine to support iOS 18’s AI features
Apple in talks with Google
Speaking to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the Cupertino-based tech giant is in “active negotiations” with Google to license its Gemini AI engine, as it seeks to catch up in the race where rivals such as Google and Microsoft have already have several notable AI features on their respective smartphones.
Apple has also reportedly held discussions with OpenAI to see if it can use its generative AI model to bring AI features to the iPhone this year.
Although the terms of the deal or branding are not yet finalized, Bloomberg reported that any announcement of this big partnership between Apple and Google could take place until June, when the iPhone maker will host its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
iOS 18 to bring AI to iPhone
Previous reports suggested Apple was betting on iOS 18 to bring AI capabilities to the iPhone as it plays a game of catch-up against its rivals. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman previously estimated that it would be one of the “biggest updates” in iPhone history, as it aims to support the AI push of Apple.
Therefore, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this AI push is expected to be Siri, Apple’s assistant for iPhone, and it could be powered by LLMs. But the company is not likely to stop there. Reports suggest that Apple is looking to integrate AI into as many apps as possible, including Apple Music, Keynote, Pages and even AppleCare.
Read also: Mark Gurman calls iOS 18 the ‘biggest’ update in iPhone history
To meet these AI demands, the iPhone maker has started building about 100 AI servers in 2023, and more could follow this year, according to Jeff Pu, an analyst at a Hong Kong investment firm . It may also bring in-device AI technology, called “edge AI.”
AI Advances
This big news comes just days after it was revealed that Apple researchers had achieved a breakthrough in training AI models on text and images. A search paper on the same was published on March 14. Titled “MM1: Methods, Analysis, and Insights from Multimodal LLM Pre-Training,” it demonstrates how using multiple architectures for training data and models can help achieve state-of-the-art results on several of the benchmarks.
“We demonstrate that for large-scale multimodal pre-training, using a judicious mix of image captions, interleaved image text, and text-only data is crucial to achieving state-of-the-art results in just a few shots view on several reference tests.” , the researchers said.
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