Apple Intelligence could be bad news for AI gadgets

So the rumors were true. Apple has decided to call its own artificial intelligence Apple Intelligence on its device. Which is either brilliant or ridiculous, depending on how you look at it. Yesterday’s announcements at WWDC were fruitful, even for Apple, as the company revealed the latest generations of each of its operating systems. But everyone only talks about Apple’s intelligence.

“Setting a new standard for privacy in artificial intelligence, Apple Intelligence understands personal context to deliver actionable and relevant information,” reads Apple’s opening salvo. And indeed, Apple’s (mostly) on-device AI aspect looks like the company is making great strides when it comes to AI privacy. It also draws comparisons to several other, somewhat unfortunate AI devices.

Yes, it’s been an interesting few months for ‘AI gadgets’, with products like the Humane Pin and Rabbit R1 not having had very auspicious starts. Companies like Humane and Rabbit have made unsuccessful efforts to create dedicated hardware that would facilitate AI-related software. And now it looks like Apple has turned the iPhone itself into an AI agent.

But what sets Apple Intelligence apart from the rest is that, in addition to its own large language model, it also works by indexing all your personal files, photos, contacts and messages and can offer contextual responses. As one X user put it: “Over a billion users now have an iOS 18 AI agent in their pocket.”