{"text":[[{"start":8.35,"text":"Apple revealed a long-awaited AI overhaul of its voice assistant Siri on Monday, in a move that shows the iPhone maker aims to compete directly with popular chatbots including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude."}],[{"start":22.75,"text":"As Apple showcased the changes to the years-old Siri, the company emphasised the assistant’s ability to tap into a user’s personal information while preserving their privacy, which it said would differentiate Siri from competitors."}],[{"start":36.55,"text":"A demo showed that the new Siri responding to queries in a similar manner and format to its rivals, while also reading what is happening onscreen and interacting with apps."}],[{"start":47.949999999999996,"text":"It will be available in beta next month before launching in the autumn. "}],[{"start":52.65,"text":"Investors were closely watching Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday for signs the iPhone maker was back on track with its suite of AI tools and features after lagging behind competitors."}],[{"start":64.75,"text":"“Some appear to be racing forward, seemingly pursuing AI for the sake of AI without clear regard for the people, all of us, that it’s meant to serve,” said Craig Federighi, Apple software engineering chief. "}],[{"start":78.15,"text":"“Today, many AI providers talk about privacy, but by default, most of them retain your personal interactions, leaving the onus on you to defend your privacy,” Federighi added. Apple would not use or keep any of the personal data around Siri AI queries, he reiterated."}],[{"start":95.65,"text":"Mike Rockwell, the senior executive who was put in charge of Siri last year as the company hurried to reset its faltering AI strategy, said Apple had delivered a “profoundly more capable assistant”. "}],[{"start":107.85000000000001,"text":"Its capabilities include, for example, pulling up photos and personal contact details, or crafting a dinner menu based on iMessage chats. A dedicated Siri app will save prior conversations and images."}],[{"start":120.50000000000001,"text":"The new Siri AI will not be available in the EU or China initially due to regulatory issues. It would launch in English, but new languages would be added quickly, the company said. It would only work on post-2023 iPhones. Apple blamed the EU’s tech platform regulation, the Digital Markets Act, for the failure to launch immediately in the bloc. "}],[{"start":140.85000000000002,"text":"Federighi on Monday said a deal the Silicon Valley giant signed with Google in January to use its foundational models had unlocked a “huge upgrade” for Apple, allowing Siri AI to effectively handle tasks for users."}],[{"start":154.20000000000002,"text":"Apple emphasised that it was not adopting Google’s models outright for the new Siri, but has instead co-developed its own family of models using Google’s Gemini foundation models as the base. "}],[{"start":166.00000000000003,"text":"Apple’s own “world knowledge” database, rather than Google’s search database, will be used by Siri to fetch live information."}],[{"start":173.55000000000004,"text":"In a strategy shift, Apple said on Monday it would use Nvidia’s leading chips to run its most advanced cloud-based AI model through Google’s servers."}],[{"start":183.00000000000003,"text":"Apple originally planned to run user queries only through its own servers on its own chips, a system it calls “Private Cloud Compute”, to ensure full data security by avoiding third-party providers."}],[{"start":195.15000000000003,"text":"Customers should not be concerned that “all my data is going to Google, and Google has access to it”, Federighi told reporters in a press conference after the keynote. "}],[{"start":205.05000000000004,"text":"He emphasised that all personal data — such as a personal message the chatbot analyses — was immediately destroyed after being sent to the cloud to process individual requests. "}],[{"start":217.00000000000003,"text":"“You’re not going to see an ad from us coming based on: ‘Hey, we noticed you like Thai food, like, here’s some Thai food,’” he joked."}],[{"start":225.50000000000003,"text":"Apple also unveiled an update to its “Liquid Glass” operating system design, which launched last year and drew criticism over its translucent bubble effect that some users said was difficult to read against certain backgrounds. A slider tool will allow users to make the overlay “fully tinted”."}],[{"start":243.95000000000002,"text":"The company said it was rolling out updated child safety features on its devices that will allow parents to decide the websites and apps their children can access across devices, control new contacts and vet images or videos sent from their devices, as well as live FaceTime calls. "}],[{"start":260.25,"text":"Apple launched new generative AI features on the iPhone two years ago with a suite of software updates it termed “Apple Intelligence”, which included writing aids, image and emoji generation and a partnership with OpenAI that linked queries through Siri to ChatGPT. There was no mention of OpenAI during the keynote on Monday."}],[{"start":281.5,"text":"While Apple first revealed a new AI Siri assistant capable of understanding personal context and taking action across apps in 2024, it had to make an embarrassing turnaround after extensively marketing the features."}],[{"start":294.6,"text":"The planned rollout was delayed after Apple conceded the feature was not ready yet. The reversal resulted in a $250mn class action settlement in May."}],[{"start":304.95000000000005,"text":"Ahead of Monday’s event, Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan wrote that while AI Siri would not “settle the AI debate on whether Apple has been lagging due to lack of in-house frontier models”, it was nonetheless an “important marker” for it to show how it was creating an agentic AI platform that marks it out from competitors. "}],[{"start":325.65000000000003,"text":"Apple’s deal with Google in January to use its Gemini models and cloud services to power AI features was widely seen as a concession that the tech giant had not managed to develop its own frontier models after proving slow to invest in generative AI. "}],[{"start":342.00000000000006,"text":"Monday’s event also marked Tim Cook’s last annual developer conference before he steps down as chief executive in September and hands over to John Ternus. Cook will remain at Apple as executive chair of its board. "}],[{"start":354.70000000000005,"text":"Cook emerged briefly for an ovation from the crowd in Cupertino’s Apple Park following a short tribute from Federighi. Ternus did not feature in Monday’s keynote event. "}],[{"start":372.1,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780976996_4494.mp3"}