By Aaron Tilley and Miles Kruppa
Apple is looking to outside companies to help its artificial intelligence efforts.
Apple has held discussions with Google and other AI software providers about using their technology to power the iPhone maker’s mobile features, said people familiar with the matter. The tech giant has talked to startups including Cohere and OpenAI as part of the discussions, some of the people said.
It wasn’t clear how any potential deal would be structured or whether Apple would partner exclusively with one of the companies. Spokespeople for Apple, Google, OpenAI and Cohere declined to comment.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant is under pressure to deliver more advanced features using the latest so-called generative artificial intelligence techniques. The potential of such software and its far-reaching implications have captured the focus and attention of various industries and set off an arms race among technology companies, primarily due to the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Some analysts saw the discussions with outside players as evidence that Apple hasn’t managed to develop internal tools as sophisticated as other dominant AI players. The company generally strongly favors the use of its own technology in its devices and has moved in recent years to build software and hardware in house.
Apple is focused on AI applications that will work on a device, but for more complicated tasks, it would need to rely on large-scale cloud infrastructure from a large technology company such as Google, analysts said. Google has invested billions in its cloud business, including developing its own chips for common AI tasks.
Over the past year, Apple investors have grown concerned that the company has fallen behind in the AI arms race and have repeatedly asked for more information about its strategy.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has repeatedly sought to allay concerns. “We also see incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we’re currently investing significantly in this area,” he said at the company’s recent annual shareholder meeting.
Apple recently put an end to its long-running electric vehicle project and shifted some of those employees over to work on its generative artificial intelligence.
Apple is looking to add a number of generative artificial intelligence features to its upcoming iPhone operating system, iOS 18, said people familiar with the matter. The new operating system is expected to be unveiled in June at the company’s developer conference.
So far, Apple has looked at bringing generative technology to autocomplete email messages, a more robust Spotlight search function, photo editing and a more advanced version of Siri. The company is also working on a software development assistance tool, similar to Microsoft-owned GitHub Copilot’s tool.
Bloomberg first reported on the talks with Google and OpenAI. On Monday, investors reacted positively for both companies to the news.
Apple has been working on its own internal generative artificial intelligence tools under John Giannandrea, its senior vice president leading these efforts. Giannandrea was hired from Google in 2018 and reports directly to Cook, a sign of the increased importance of artificial intelligence at Apple.
Apple last week released a paper detailing one of its own generative artificial intelligence models. The model, called MM1, is smaller than the most advanced algorithms, with 30 billion parameters compared with OpenAI GPT-4’s nearly two trillion parameters.
A deal with Apple would help Google’s AI push as it tries to promote a set of technologies known as Gemini, its answer to ChatGPT. Cohere, led by former Google researcher Aidan Gomez, sells AI software that companies can use to build conversational apps.
Google has for years paid Apple billions of dollars to make its search engine the default in the Safari browser. The Justice Department has challenged the deal in a landmark antitrust case that is expected to wrap up this year. Both companies have defended the agreement.
Samsung, the largest manufacturer of phones using Google’s Android software, already uses Gemini to power some AI features on its newest Galaxy smartphones.
Gemini recently drew controversy after the chatbot produced ahistoric images and, in some cases, refused to generate depictions of white people. Google CEO Sundar Pichai called the outputs unacceptable and promised to make structural changes at the company to fix the issues.
Write to Aaron Tilley at aaron.tilley@wsj.com and Miles Kruppa at miles.kruppa@wsj.com