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Apple especially on its next AI features to stimulate iPhone sales, especially in China, where demand was late. But there is a problem: Chatgpt – soon integrated in Siri – is prohibited in China.
In a presentation earlier this month, Apple (Aapl) has shown its owner technology called Apple Intelligence to feed the new convincing AI features and announced a Partnership with OPENAI To also use its viral chatgpt tool for limited capacity. (When Siri is activated and needs more help to respond to an investigation, Chatgpt can intervene.)
This decision indicated how Apple was trying to accelerate the latest buzzing technology at a time when technological rivals, such as Microsoft, Google, Meta and Samsung, have already found their AI foot. An agreement with Openai could help Apple fill the gap.
But China is one of the first countries in the world to regulate generative AI technology that feeds these popular services. In August, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the best internet guard dog in the country, was deployed New guidelines For industry, forcing companies to request approval before deployment. The organization approved Over 100 AI models in March, all Chinese companies.
According to a report From the Wall Street Journal Thursday, Apple is looking for a Chinese AI company to associate before the planned launch of the iPhone in September, but it has not yet reached an agreement.
Apple did not respond to a request for comments.
The need to find a partner – and quickly – comes at a time when Apple smartphones sales tumbled A superb 10% in the first quarter of this year, according to the market research company IDC, due in large part to iPhone sales falling strongly in China. The company has lost momentum in China as nationalism, brutal economy and increased competition have also harmed sales. China is the second business market.
The limitations of its new AI tools may not be specific to China. In a statement sent to CNN following the publication of this article, Apple said that it was “very motivated” to provide features to customers around the world, but it is also faced with regulatory challenges in the European Union.
The company said it did not think it could deploy its AI features in Europe this year.
“Due to the regulatory uncertainties caused by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), we do not think that we will be able to deploy three of these features – from mirroring, improvements in SharePlay screen sharing and Apple intelligence – to our users of the EU this year,” said a spokesperson in a press release.
“More specifically, we fear that the requirements of interoperability of the DMA do not force us to compromise the integrity of our products in a way that risks the confidentiality of users and data security,” he added. “We are committed to collaborating with the European Commission in order to find a solution that would allow us to provide these features to our EU customers without compromising their security.”
In China, the concerns about iPhone sales continue to go up while growth in smartphones sales of the Chinese smartphone brand Huawei was 70% in the first quarter, according to Counterpoint Research.
If a solution is not developed in the fall, Chinese consumers can feel short and choose to wait for them to get the full IA experience with Apple, she added.
“Apple is very likely to search for a local partner in China in place of Openai, because it is simply necessary,” said Nabila Popal, principal director at IDC Research. “Chinese consumers are expect their premium phones to have the latest AI features and can hesitate to spend more than $ 1,000 for devices that I don’t have all the bells and whistles of the AI.
“Real growth in China for Apple will occur in the long term, because Apple Intelligence evolves offering more use cases, extends the linguistic support beyond English and when Siri can take advantage of other local AI models to provide the chatgpt type function,” said Popal.
In the meantime, some AI companies in China can be better suited to target its consumers anyway, as by offering more local dialects than what is currently in foreign AI models, noted Reece Hayden, analyst at Abi Research.
Apple would not be the first foreign company to work with the administration of Cyberespace de la China for AI and smartphones. In January, Samsung joined the Chinese giant of Baidu technology (Hack) to use your AI model to help feed its translation service. It works with another IA Meitu company for photo editing tools. In other parts of the world, Samsung uses its own ownership technology, as well as that of Google (Googl) Gemini of the AI model, which is also prohibited in China.
According to Counterpoint Research, Samsung represents less than 1% of the total market in China, however.
Although the clock checks to ensure that Apple secures a partnership before launching the fall software, Jeff Fieldhack, research director at Counterpoint, believes that he will be able to conclude a time agreement.
“Apple should be able to line up with a partnership very quickly because it has such a strong global installation base, and it would be a jewel for these companies to work with them,” he said, noting that they would soon be established as AI electric player in the country.