In mid-April, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg announced new AI-based Virtual Assistant Features. One month later, Meta was granted a patent focused on adding a digital assistant to future Quest Headsets and smartglasses via a hybrid architecture that's in part based on AI. In under 3 weeks, Apple will be revealing some of their new AI software at WWDC24 in an effort to catch up with their competitors.

Apple is reportedly planning to unveil a different approach to artificial intelligence, focusing on tools that ordinary consumers can use in their daily lives. The idea is to appeal to a user’s practical side — and leave some of the more whiz-bang features to other companies, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

Gurman adds that "Apple is in a challenging position. It needs to convince consumers and investors that it’s doing exciting things in AI. But the company is following major AI announcements from Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and OpenAI, which have stolen the spotlight.

Apple is preparing to spend a good portion of its Worldwide Developers Conference laying out its AI-related features. At the heart of the new strategy is Project Greymatter — a set of AI tools that the company will integrate into core apps like Safari, Photos and Notes. The push also includes operating system features such as enhanced notifications.

The system will work as follows: Much of the processing for less computing-intensive AI features will run entirely on the device. But if a feature requires more horsepower, the work will be pushed to the cloud.

Apple is bringing the new AI features to iOS 18 and macOS 15 — and both operating systems will include software that determines whether a task should be handled on the device or via the cloud. Most of the on-device features will be supported by iPhone, iPad and Mac chips released in the last year or so. The cloud component, meanwhile, will be powered by M2 Ultra chips located in data centers, as I’ve previously reported.

There are several new capabilities in the works for this year, including ones that transcribe voice memos, retouch photos with AI, and make searches faster and more reliable in the Spotlight feature. They also will improve Safari web search and automatically suggest replies to emails and text messages.

The Siri personal assistant will get an upgrade as well, with more natural-sounding interactions based on Apple’s own large language models — the core technology behind generative AI. There’s also a more advanced Siri coming to the Apple Watch for on-the-go tasks. Developer tools, including Xcode, are getting AI enhancements too.

One standout feature will bring generative AI to emojis. The company is developing software that can create custom emojis on the fly, based on what users are texting. That means you’ll suddenly have an all-new emoji for any occasion, beyond the catalog of options that Apple currently offers on the iPhone and other devices.

A big part of the effort is creating smart recaps. The technology will be able to provide users with summaries of their missed notifications and individual text messages, as well as of web pages, news articles, documents, notes and other forms of media.

There will be hundreds of millions of Apple devices around the world that can support the AI features when they debut later this year. The owners of those devices will probably at least try out the new capabilities (the technology may be integrated tightly enough that people won’t even notice they’re using them). That could turn Apple into the biggest AI player overnight.

For more on this and other miscellaneous thoughts, read the full Bloomberg report.

Side Note: In May, Apple filed an AI-related patent covering an Application for an Image Generation System with Controllable Scene Lighting.