The tool, called Ajax, relied on the company’s own LLM framework and was not widely available to users.

Apple is developing artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including a chatbot similar to ChatGPT, Bloomberg reported on July 19.

Company members have reportedly been working on an internal framework for a large-scale language model called “Ajax” since 2022. This development, in turn, led to the creation of an AI chatbot known internally as “Apple GPT.”

Employees are using the chatbot to summarize texts and prototype products. Despite the tool's growing importance within the company, it is still used on a small scale: it requires special approval and may not be used to develop customer-focused features. Multiple teams have reportedly joined together to work on the project, with some recent efforts focused on addressing privacy issues that may arise.

Internal tools only

Bloomberg notes that Apple has yet to develop any strategy for making AI tools available to users. It also observes that the company’s main publicly available AI product to date, the Siri voice assistant, has made little progress recently.

Still, it noted the company’s progress in artificial intelligence in other areas, including advances in photos and search on the iPhone. The company also expects to launch an improved version of autocorrect in the near future.

Whether or not Apple launches its AI tool publicly, it will have to compete with other similar tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, and Microsoft's Bing AI.

Past comments from Apple CEO Tim Cook have suggested that the company plans to gradually introduce AI. In May 2023, Cook said that Apple believes AI is "huge," but noted that the company "will continue to thoughtfully incorporate it into its products."

Apple also recently launched a VR headset in June, which some believe will lay the foundation for the "metaverse" and related digital transactions. In October 2022, Apple released updated App Store guidelines that clearly outlined policies for cryptocurrency and NFT payments, despite controversy. In addition, in April of this year, Apple users discovered a copy of the Bitcoin white paper embedded in the Mac OS system.