In brief: Days before Apple Intelligence makes its public debut, a new report suggests it may have some catching up to do right from the start – at least compared to OpenAI’s offerings. However, Apple may have a few tricks up its sleeve to compensate for any shortcomings.
According to the latest Power On newsletter by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, internal studies at Apple have found that the current iteration of their AI lags behind industry leaders like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The research reportedly showed that ChatGPT is around 25 percent more accurate and is capable of answering roughly 30 percent more queries.
In fact, Gurman claims “some at Apple believe that its generative AI technology – at least, so far – is more than two years behind the industry leaders.”
To be fair, Apple has a history of taking its time to perfect new technologies before releasing them to the public. The company often lets others go first, learns from their mistakes, and then swoops in with a more polished experience built on top of the latest advancements. We’ve seen this playbook time and again with products like the iPod, iPhone, Apple Watch, and more recently, foldables.
Still, a two-year deficit in a field evolving as rapidly as generative AI is nothing to sneeze at. By the time Apple Intelligence hits its stride in 2026, based on Gurman’s timeline, who knows what groundbreaking new capabilities the competition will have developed.
The good news for Apple is that it has a few powerful advantages that could help it close the gap quickly, despite the late start. Gurman notes that it’s hard to count Apple out.
“It has a cherished brand, nearly limitless resources, and a history of coming from behind and being successful. At some point, Apple will either develop, hire or acquire its way into the top tier of AI companies,” he adds.
Secondly, Gurman says Apple can leverage its massive global install base of over a billion active devices to rapidly roll out AI features and services at an unmatched scale. The plan reportedly involves making Apple Intelligence the core ambient intelligence layer across the entire Apple ecosystem by 2026, integrated into everything from iPhones and iPads to Macs, Apple TVs, and more.
“By 2026, nearly every Apple device with a screen will run it,” claims Gurman.
With such a widespread rollout, there’s a strong chance users will opt for Apple’s AI over other chatbots, as it will be seamlessly integrated and ready to go across their devices.
Of course, this is all speculative for now. We’ll see how things unfold once the global rollout for Apple Intelligence begins. While Apple has officially confirmed iOS 18.1 and a major AirPods Pro 2 firmware update for next week, Gurman has pinpointed the 28th as the launch date when we’ll finally get our hands on all the new AI features.
