This may be one of the last important public events of Tim Cook's tenure as Apple's CEO, and he may give Wall Street the long-awaited answer: Apple's plans for artificial intelligence strategy. Apple is expected to launch a new version of Siri at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday. This voice assistant, which has a history of about 15 years, is expected to catch up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
The tech giant will also release multiple software updates covering billions of iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple Watches around the world. Nowadays, chatbots and artificial intelligence assistants have been widely integrated into daily use scenarios, and the new Siri will also become the most important signal for Apple's comprehensive product innovation. The outside world is also paying great attention to whether Apple can continue its past ability to build emerging technologies into hit products and replicate this advantage in the field of artificial intelligence.
Apple has fallen behind on the artificial intelligence track. Its upgrade plan for Siri has been repeatedly postponed, and some features announced in 2024 have not yet been implemented. Currently, the artificial intelligence tools related to Apple Intelligence launched by Apple for iPhone, iPad and Mac also lack features and find it difficult to stand out among competing products.
Apple has now launched voice translation, screen content retrieval, custom expression generation and other functions. However, companies such as Google and OpenAI have successively launched smart assistants, claiming that they can complete a set of complex tasks on behalf of users.
Gene Munster, co-founder and managing partner of Deepwater Asset Management, a technology investment institution, said: "Apple has not come up with a truly amazing product so far."
The new version of Siri is expected to help Apple catch up. According to media sources, this voice assistant may usher in a number of major upgrades: supporting multiple tasks with a single command, launching independent applications, and adopting a chatbot-style interactive interface.
Anurag Rana, a senior stock analyst in the field of media industry research software and information technology services, said that Apple and Google officially announced a cooperation in January this year, and Google's big model will provide technical support for the new version of Siri, which is expected to significantly improve the user experience of this voice assistant.
Rana said: "Google's Gemini large model is currently developing strongly and its performance is very impressive."
Over the past year, investors and analysts have frequently asked Apple about Apple’s artificial intelligence development strategy during earnings calls. Although iPhone sales continue to rise, Wall Street still hopes to clarify the position of artificial intelligence in Apple's long-term development plan.
This important task will soon be handed over to new Apple CEO John Ternus. He is currently in charge of Apple's hardware engineering business and will officially take over as CEO in September this year. Tim Cook will become executive chairman of the company's board of directors.
But Apple has a huge market share - more than 2.5 billion Apple devices are currently in use around the world, which will become a major advantage for it.
This may be Apple's big opportunity. Rana said that because Apple’s smart functions are only suitable for iPhone 15 Pro and subsequent models, more than half of the iPhones in use in the world (approximately 1 billion units) are currently unable to use this function.
Munster said: "They are not going to mess this up. The stakes are too high for Apple to let this slip."