Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman released a report early this morning, detailing Apple's strategic missteps and internal conflicts in the AI field, while also disclosing some of the company's progress plans for AI this year.
According to Gurman's report, the upgraded version of Siri will continue to be "delayed," with a possible release after next month's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Although the new version of Siri may be unveiled alongside iOS 19 at WWDC, it is expected not to be heavily emphasized, and actual release will still require several more months of waiting.
The report points out that Apple realized early on that "AI is the future trend." As early as 2014, some senior executives responsible for software engineering had already regarded AI as revolutionary. To this end, Apple acquired dozens of small AI companies to obtain technical support, and even considered acquiring Mobileye, a leader in intelligent driving, for $4 billion to enhance its own autonomous driving and AI vision technology. However, Mobileye was eventually acquired by Intel, and Apple's autonomous driving project has reportedly been disbanded in recent years.
There are significant divisions within Apple regarding its AI strategy. Software chief Craig Federighi is skeptical about AI, believing that the investment risk is high and the actual returns are limited, so he is very hesitant about funding. Meanwhile, AI head John Giannandrea, although aware that developing AI requires substantial financial input, due to conflicting ideas with Federighi, his work has been "obstructed," making it difficult to smoothly advance the AI development plan.
It is worth noting that sources inside Apple revealed that despite the company's high hopes for LLM Siri, which is based on large language models, it is preparing to differentiate Apple Intelligence from Siri in marketing. This is seen as Apple indirectly admitting that Siri lags behind in AI development, and this lag has affected the company's reputation in the AI field.
In addition, Apple plans to change its product marketing strategy, no longer "overpromising" — stopping the announcement of new features several months before the official product launch, and instead adopting a more pragmatic product release rhythm.