Photo Credit: Omid Armin
Apple delays the release of its ‘more personalized’ AI-centric Siri update as part of the broader rollout of Apple Intelligence.
Apple admits the rollout of its new Siri update is taking longer than anticipated. The company is adding new AI features to its digital assistant as part of the broader rollout of Apple Intelligence, which includes a “more personalized Siri” experience.
The updated Siri, first announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference last year, means to upgrade the digital assistant to understand personal context, utilizing your relationships, communications, routine, and more. According to CEO Tim Cook, the upgrade would make the service more useful by providing it the ability to take action for a user across their apps.
But the delay highlights a broader issue: critics feel Siri is lagging behind its competitors, due to Apple falling behind on AI. Users have reported problems like Siri providing incorrect information about basic facts. These issues have led some to wonder if they should shut off the assistant altogether, or utilize something like ChatGPT instead.
The news comes at a time when Apple’s competitors are already updating their virtual assistants with AI capabilities. Google has been making the shift from its Google Assistant to its AI platform, Gemini. Meanwhile, Amazon has announced a partnership with AI music company Suno for new functionality in its updated Alexa — branded Alexa+.
Amazon’s partnership with Suno brings its own problems, however. The company is currently embroiled in a significant legal battle with the major labels over copyright infringement, accused of using copyrighted materials to train its AI models. This makes things even more awkward for Amazon, who just signed an expanded global partnership with Universal only three months ago.
Those close to the situation say Amazon didn’t give its music partners (including Universal) a heads up about its new deal with Suno. But the Universal agreement promises to see the music giant and Amazon “work collaboratively to address […] unlawful AI-generated content.”
That could mean that perhaps Universal is well aware of the Suno partnership and plans to be instrumental in overseeing it. Whether that will shake out, or if the lawsuit will only make things difficult for Amazon in the long run, remains to be seen.
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.