Apple's AI efforts 'significantly behind' ChatGPT and years away, top analyst claims

(Image credit: John-Anthony Disotto)

Following some reports that Apple is winding up for a big AI announcement as soon as 2024, one analyst has poured cold water on there being any huge advancements that soon.

With generative AI very much in the news right now thanks to OpenAI and its ChatGPT work, all eyes are on Apple to see when it will make its own move into a market that has the potential to change the way people live, work, and play.

But anyone hoping for Siri to take big leaps in functionality as soon as next year looks set to be left disappointed, according to well-respected supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

2024 will come too soon

Kuo was writing in a new Medium post outlining Apple's plans ahead of its impending quarterly earnings call when he laid waste to hopes of new AI-powered iPhone 16 improvements in 2024.

Writing in that post, Kuo says that "the progress of Apple’s generative AI is significantly behind its competitors, so I don’t expect Apple to talk too much about AI on the earnings call." Vision Pro is sure to be key to Apple's future plans and while generative AI might well be, 2024 now might come too soon.

This is despite Bloomberg's Mark Gurman having previously suggested that "people familiar with the [generative AI] work believe Apple is aiming to make a significant AI-related announcement next year."

That comment came as part of a wider discussion of the work Apple is already doing in generative AI, although it did note that the company is yet to decide what form that work will take once handed over to users.

Now, it appears that Siri is about as good as it's going to get whether you're using an old iPhone SE or choose to pick up the best iPhone has to offer this September. And in a world where Siri continues to fall behind the competition that's bad news indeed.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.