Apple’s foresight allows for AI integration into Apple devices

At Apple’s WWDC in June, the company laid out its vision for integrating AI into its ecosystem of apps, hardware and services, easing the claims made by many that Apple is lagging behind in AI.

If you’ve been closely following Apple’s semiconductor strategy, particularly the announcement of its M1 processor in November 2020, you know that it brought significant improvements to CPU and GPU performance and showcased the Neural Engine processor.

At the same time, Apple also announced how the Neural Engine can accelerate a variety of CPU-, GPU-, and software-related functions. But Apple’s choice not to associate the NPU with the rhetoric of AI, which wasn’t much of a talking point at the time of the M1’s launch, likely confused some, especially those unfamiliar with the role of the Neural Processor (now called the NPU).

Today, we know that NPUs and more powerful CPUs and GPUs are the key processors used for all AI computational functions.

Apple’s foresight and investment in the Neural Engine and Apple Silicon in general means that Apple can deploy AI capabilities that run on devices people already own. Far from falling behind in AI, Apple is ahead of most device manufacturers, who are only just catching up by integrating NPUs into their hardware and relying on third-party software to provide AI capabilities on their devices.

When Apple announced its AI strategy in June, most industry and financial analysts were unsure of what Apple had done. However, Apple was trying to take a leadership role by deeply integrating AI into its apps and services. Once analysts understood this, Wall Street understood the depth of Apple’s AI integration with its 1.5 billion users, and Apple’s stock price rose significantly.

In fact, in a recent note on Apple iPhone sales, Evercore financial analyst Amit Daryanani said, “Our survey data suggests that nearly half (46%) of non-15 generation iPhone owners are likely to upgrade to the iPhone 16 to take advantage of the additional features of Apple Intelligence.”

All the major chipmakers have been developing NPUs for years, but it was only with the advent of generative AI that customers began demanding powerful NPUs as well as new CPUs and GPUs.

Apple’s strength is the deep integration of artificial intelligence into its apps, software and services. Because Apple owns the hardware, software and services, it has a huge competitive advantage over its competitors.

The core of Apple’s strategy is to combine and deliver AI processing on its own hardware, linking to cloud computing power only when necessary depending on the complexity of the AI ​​task. At the same time, Apple has already adapted several popular AI frameworks to run efficiently on Apple silicon.

My friend Jason Snell shared a great example at MacWorld of how Apple is using on-device AI and cloud computing.

Jason concludes: “Over time, as devices get more powerful and models become more efficient, things could get really interesting. Imagine a massive number of cloud servers being defeated by a million Macs, iPhones and iPads working in tandem towards a common goal. It seems a bit odd at the moment, but if any company can shift the trajectory of technological progress back from data centers to personal devices, it’s Apple.”

This fall, Apple will release iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, which will bring the first deep integration of AI into Apple’s apps and services. Soon, we’ll all see how Apple’s AI will impact business and consumer apps and services, and Apple’s advantage will become clear. The following table shows which Apple devices can take advantage of these new operating systems.

By the way, beta versions of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia are available now. Reports suggest that these versions are stable, but may still have glitches. To be on the safe side, we recommend waiting to download them until the official releases are available this fall, especially for devices that you use frequently and expect stability.

Disclosure: Apple, along with many other tech companies around the world, subscribes to Creative Strategies research reports.