Apple’s Massive Investment in Advanced AI: Ajax GPT and Conversational AI

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Joaquim Cardoso MSc.

Chief Research and Strategy Officer (CRSO),
Chief Editor and Senior Advisor

September 6, 2023

What is the message?

Apple is heavily investing in artificial intelligence (AI), allocating millions of dollars daily to develop advanced AI models and projects.

The company’s AI efforts encompass conversational AI, image generation, multimodal AI, and the creation of a powerful language model named Ajax GPT, which surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-3.5.

Apple’s commitment to AI underscores its pursuit of innovation and improved user experiences across its products and services.

Key takeaways:

What is Apple investing in according to the report?

• Apple is investing millions of dollars per day into artificial intelligence (AI), focusing on various AI models and projects.

What is the name of the unit within Apple working on conversational AI, and who leads it?

• The unit responsible for conversational AI is called “Foundational Models,” led by John Giannandrea, Apple’s head of AI. This unit comprises approximately 16 members, including former Google engineers.

What are some of the specific AI projects Apple is working on?

• Apple has multiple AI teams working on various projects. One team is developing a chatbot to interact with AppleCare customers, while another is researching multimodal AI capable of recognizing and generating images, video, and text.

• Additionally, there’s an effort to make Siri more adept at automating complex tasks.

What distinguishes Apple’s most advanced language model, Ajax GPT, according to the report?

• Ajax GPT, Apple’s most advanced language model, has been trained on over 200 billion parameters, making it more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, which serves as the foundation for the initial version of ChatGPT.

Is Ajax GPT widely accessible, or is it primarily for internal use?

• Ajax GPT was initially created for internal use within Apple and is currently not widely accessible outside the company.

DEEP DIVE

Apple is reportedly spending ‘millions of dollars a day’ training AI

The company reportedly believes that Ajax, its most advanced language model, is more powerful than ChatGPT.

The Verge

Monica Chin

September 6, 2023

Apple is investing millions of dollars per day into artificial intelligence, according to a new report from The Information. The company is reportedly working on multiple AI models across several teams.

Apple’s unit that works on conversational AI is called “Foundational Models,” per The Information’s reporting. It has “around 16” members, including several former Google engineers. It’s helmed by John Giannandrea, Apple’s head of AI, who was hired in 2018 to help improve Siri. (Giannandrea has reportedly “expressed skepticism to colleagues about the potential usefulness of chatbots powered by AI language models.”)

Additional teams at Apple are also working on artificial intelligence, per The Information. A Visual Intelligence unit is developing an image generation model, and another group is researching “multimodal AI, which can recognize and produce images or video as well as text.”

These models could serve a variety of purposes. A chatbot is in the works that would “interact with customers who use AppleCare”; another would make it easier to automate multistep tasks with Siri.

Those involved in its development tell The Information that Apple’s most advanced LLM, known internally as Ajax GPT, has been trained on “more than 200 billion parameters” and is more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, the foundation of the initial version of ChatGPT that rolled out last year. This model was initially created for internal use, according to previous reporting from Bloomberg and remains fairly locked down within the company.

Apple has not returned a request for comment on this report.

Originally published at https://www.theverge.com