Some Apple employees believe the company is gearing up for a major AI-related announcement next year.

Apple experienced a brief surge in its stock value following a report revealing the company’s development of an internal artificial intelligence large language model (LLM).

Despite the excitement, the stock closed the trading day with only a minor increase of less than 1%.

This move by Apple indicates a serious consideration of recent advancements in AI technology and the potential integration of these capabilities into their future products. Although Apple seldom uses the term “artificial intelligence,” it has been actively engaged in the field of “machine learning,” a more academically recognized term.

Within the company, there exists an internal foundation for AI known as Ajax, where a small team of engineers has been working on a chatbot referred to as “Apple GPT.” Currently, access to this chatbot is limited within Apple.

Apple AI

Large language models have been the center of attention among technologists and investors in the past year. These AI technologies can generate text or code that closely resembles human composition. Although Apple seems to be entering the LLM domain now, the tech giant has already been utilizing a significant amount of machine learning in its products. Features like Siri’s speech recognition and the Photos app’s ability to detect faces and pets are a testament to this.

However, in comparison to other tech giants, Apple appears somewhat late in embracing the LLM trend. Competitors like Microsoft have integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT into their software, while Google has integrated its Bard into its search engine. Amazon is set to offer LLMs through AWS, and Meta has even open-sourced a substantial LLM project recently.

Interestingly, on Tuesday, Qualcomm, a company that manufactures processors for phones competing with Apple’s iPhone, announced its collaboration with Meta to enable LLMs to function directly on Android devices, avoiding reliance on distant cloud servers.

Apple’s venture into developing its own LLM signals a significant stride in AI innovation, and the industry will be watching for the company’s potential AI-related revelations in the coming year.