Apple is reportedly working on various AI-powered features and is expected to unveil these features with its upcoming iOS 18. Now, a report suggests that the company has hired dozens of artificial intelligence (AI) experts from Google. In addition to this, it has formed a "secretive European laboratory" in Zurich to house a new team of staff tasked with developing new AI models and products, a media report said on Tuesday.
According to The Financial Times, Apple has hired a minimum of 36 experts from Google since 2018, when it brought in John Giannandrea to head its AI team. Although Apple's main AI team is based in California and Seattle, it has recently established new offices in Zurich, Switzerland that are solely dedicated to AI work.
As per the report, the employees working at the lab have been actively involved in Apple's research on the fundamental technology that powers OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot and other similar products based on large language models (LLMs).
The focus of the research has been on developing more advanced AI models that can incorporate both text and visual inputs to generate responses to user queries.
The report suggested that Apple's recent work on LLMs is an expected outcome of the company's decade-long research on Siri.
Presently, the tech giant's top AI team comprises notable ex-Google personnel such as Giannandrea, former head of Google Brain, which is now a part of DeepMind. Samy Bengio, currently senior director of AI and ML research at Apple, was also previously a top AI scientist at Google.
Meanwhile, according to a report by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple is planning to update several of its system apps in the upcoming iOS 18. These updates are expected to include new features for Notes, Mail, Fitness, and Photos. Although the specifics of these updates haven't been revealed yet, it's speculated that the Notes app will receive significant upgrades, such as an inbuilt calculator, which has long been requested by Apple users.
The new iOS update is also expected to include smarter Siri capabilities and AI enhancements that will be added across various apps, including Shortcuts, Spotlight, Messages, Apple Music, Keynote, Health, and more. Furthermore, users can expect new customization options for Safari Browsing Assistant, Voice Memos app, and Apple Maps.
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inputs from IANS
