Apple has been conspicuously absent in generative AI news, while OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Meta are making headlines with their advances daily. However, the iPhone maker hasn’t given up, and a privacy-focused Apple AI is undergoing internal testing.
According to a Bloomberg report, Apple is working on a chatbot and has already been testing it internally. Reporter Mark Gurman’s sources claim that Apple’s AI plans are expected to be revealed in a major announcement in 2024. Apple engineers are said to refer to the AI as “Apple GPT” internally, suggesting it could use a generative pretrained transformer (GPT) somewhat similar to OpenAI’s model.
Apple’s AI is a large language model, reportedly called “Ajax,” that runs on Google Cloud using Google’s Jax machine learning framework. Apple uses Google Cloud for iCloud services as well, and the data is encrypted and secure. In a recent interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about AI, saying it’s important to be “very deliberate and very thoughtful in the development and the deployment.”
Apple’s AI engineers, in theory, would be faced with the unique task of creating an effective AI while protecting user privacy, which will be key to making this technology fit the Apple brand. While Apple has banned the use of ChatGPT internally, Gurman suggests Ajax has been in use instead.
In the report, Gurman added that Apple is unlikely to buy out an existing generative AI company, as some have speculated. The reason for this stance could be Apple’s difficulty in integrating acquisitions. Apple has made slow progress after purchasing Intel’s modem division, for example.
But even beyond Gurman’s report, we do know that Apple has been investing in AI. The company has been posting many AI-related job listings in recent months and during a hiring freeze. So far, Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged any plans to join in with a generative AI solution of its own — but it’s starting to seem inevitable that Apple enters the AI chatbot race at some point.
Apple isn’t new to AI entirely, of course. Apple currently incorporates AI into plenty of its products, whether that be handwriting recognition on the iPad, background removal on the iPhone, and video reactions on a Mac. Apple has even announced a new generative AI feature for iPhone, although the accessibility feature wasn’t described that way.
Beyond that, Personal Voice is coming in iOS 17, which allows iPhone owners to use a customized text-to-speech feature. After recording several snippets of your speech, the iPhone can synthesize your voice with good fidelity.
AI like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, GPT-4, Bing Chat, and Google Bard, however, operate on an entirely different level of sophistication, outshining the best efforts of earlier AI in terms of understanding human speech and even uploaded images. By next year, Apple be fR behind the competition, especially given the speed at which the technology is advancing.
Google just dropped its latest AI model, Gemini 4 Carbon, designed to tackle complex coding jobs and cybersecurity threats. The company claims it can work through difficult engineering problems for days, finding hidden bugs and developing fixes across large codebases.
Gemini 4 Carbon also takes the top spot on Artificial Analysis' updated Intelligence Index, scoring 59 points, pushing out Claude Opus 5.5, OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, and even its own predecessor Gemini 4 Argon.
Apple has just introduced a redesigned MacBook Pro with a few bells and whistles. The focus this time around is on a thinner and lighter build, and an upgrade to a touch-sensitive OLED screen without any ugly notch. And, in case you were wondering, there is definitely a price premium to pay for these niceties, which also include a glowing Apple logo at the back. What if you wanted to get the best that Apple has to offer? Well, the numbers are finally here.
For a mere $14,549, you can get yourself the fully kitted 16-inch MacBook Pro PROLED XDR with the beefiest laptop chip that Apple has to offer, and the best memory configuration in tow. For nearly $15,000, you treat yourself to the 16-inch version of the laptop with a nano-texture glass layer on the screen to reduce reflections and glare.
Apple has unveiled its first-ever touchscreen MacBook Pro. The company seems a bit confused about the naming, calling it the "MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display," which is tough to remember. If you look past that and review the full spec sheets, you might ask a genuine question: what are the differences between the touchscreen and non-touchscreen versions?
Given that Apple continues to sell both variants together, that's a genuine question. Luckily, you don't have to spend more time lining up the spec sheets side by side and hunting for differences hidden in the fine print. I took that bullet for you. Here's everything that's different between the PROLED XDR Display and the regular MacBook Pro.