Apple working with Baidu to bring Apple Intelligence to China: Report

Apple Intelligence in China: Apple and Baidu are working to add AI features to iPhones sold in China, but are facing hurdles that could hurt the tech giant's phone sales in the country, The Information has reported.

The companies, which are adapting Baidu's large language models for iPhone users, are grappling with issues such as the LLMs' understanding of prompts and accuracy in responding to common scenarios, according to the report.

Apple and Baidu did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Sales of iPhone in China slipped 0.3%, while rival Huawei posted a 42% surge in sales in the third quarter, research firm IDC had said in October, as competition intensifies in the world's largest smartphone market.

Apple's long-awaited iPhone 16 launch in September had drawn scorn in China for its lack of artificial intelligence features.

Also, Apple's privacy policies do not allow collection of data from iPhone users who make AI-related queries, but Baidu wants to save and analyze this data, according to the report.

Baidu's most advanced model, Ernie 4.0, is being employed as the foundation for Apple's genAI services on the iPhone, Mac and iPad, The Information said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Siri will also use Baidu's AI models, according to the report. 

For the unversed, Apple had first announced Apple Intelligence at its annual developers' conference, WWDC 2024, this year. The company was expected to launch the iPhone 16 series with its generative AI-based features. However, Apple delayed the update to October. It introduced some of the Apple Intelligence-powered features with iOS 18.1 update. The update brought features such as writing tools, AI-powered notification summary, smart replies in mail and messages and a clean-up feature in Photos. Apple will roll out more Apple Intelligence features with the roll out of iOS 18.2 later this month, which will bring support for ChatGPT among others to the supported iPhone models.