Morgan Stanley is the latest firm to report on Apple’s AI plans, which should be unveiled soon. According to a note seen by BGR, 2024 will be the year when Apple’s “Edge AI opportunity likely comes to fruition, highlighted by an LLM-powered Siri 2.0 and a broader Gen AI-enabled operating system (introduced at WWDC in June) that has the potential to catalyze an iPhone upgrade cycle.”
This analysis comes a day after Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reported on the possible AI applications Apple is working to introduce with iOS 18 (which were also previously mentioned by him and The Information):
- Auto-summarizing and auto-complete features for core apps and productivity software (Pages, Keynote)
- Better playlist creation in Apple Music
- Siri (a big overall overhaul with a focus on AI)
- Code completion in a new version of Xcode for developers
- AppleCare tools to assist employees in helping customers with troubleshooting
While these publications focus on the new features, Morgan Stanley believes this AI push could improve iPhone sales. “We believe the introduction of new LLM-enabled software features can reverse this trend [of lower iPhone sales], as new hardware/component requirements potentially limit the backwards compatibility of an OS upgrade, forcing consumers to upgrade to a new device in a way they haven’t had to since the iPhone 12 [with 5G introduction].”
The speculation about the imminent announcement of AI features comes as Apple’s job postings for Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing roles continue to increase, with DP appearing in 49% of Apple’s AI job postings and NLP appearing in 23% of them. In addition, a paper highlighting how Apple has developed a method to utilize NAND flash to power larger LLMs that would not be possible to run on devices with current levels of DRAM.
