Apple’s answer to ChatGPT and Bard could arrive next year – report

You’d probably be more surprised if it wasn’t, but Apple is reportedly testing an AI chatbot of its own to rival Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple has built its own large language model codenamed ‘Ajax’ as well as a corresponding chatbot which is being referred to as ‘Apple GPT’ inside Cupertino.

The well-connected reporter Mark Gurman says that although the technology is being worked on in the background, there’s still indecision about how to deploy it to customers.

However, this is a cross company effort, according to the report, and Apple could making a “significant AI-related announcement next year.”

“The company has already deployed AI-related improvements to search, Siri and maps based on that system. And Ajax is now being used to create large language models and serve as the foundation for the internal ChatGPT-style tool,” Gurman has heard from people familiar with the matter.

According to today’s report, Apple is gradually rolling out test access to employees, some of whom are already using it to assist with product prototyping. Gurman says Apple is seeking top talent from across the generative AI industry as its plans go into overdrive.

The update comes after previous reporting from the New York Times in March this year, claiming a Siri-powered rival to the AI chatbot pacemakers was incoming.

The report focused on how Apple’s Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant’s “miscalculations” left the door open for the chatbot explosion led by OpenAI. It asserted Siri and its rivals “squandered” the chance to lead the AI race.

The NYT said part of Apple’s issues with shifting its existing Siri model to a more interactive solution is down to the way the assistant’s word database was originally compiled, which a source described as “one big snowball”. That meant there was no “clear path” to pivot Siri to a ChatGPT like tool.