Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner mentioned DeepSeek’s AI fashions signify “innovation that drives effectivity” on an earnings name on Thursday whereas fielding questions from analysts concerning the iPhone maker’s ambitions round AI.
“Usually, I believe innovation that drives effectivity is an effective factor. And, you realize, that’s what you see in that mannequin,” mentioned Cook dinner, responding to an analyst’s query about how DeepSeek’s AI fashions would affect Apple’s margins.
Cook dinner went on to notice that Apple leverages a hybrid mannequin for its AI, during which it runs some easy duties domestically – utilizing its personal AI fashions on its system’s customized silicon chips. In the meantime, different, extra sophisticated duties run within the cloud via partnerships with AI mannequin suppliers.
Cook dinner additionally famous Apple has at all times taken a “prudent and deliberate” method to these kind of expenditures.
Apple at present solely has one AI partnership, with OpenAI, which permits ChatGPT to reply advanced questions from iPhone customers in a personal cloud.
Notably, OpenAI claimed this week to have proof that its AI fashions have been used to coach DeepSeek’s AI fashions via a course of referred to as distillation. If true, that may violate OpenAI’s utilization insurance policies, and undermine DeepSeek’s accomplishments.
That didn’t cease Apple’s CEO from tossing a praise in the direction of DeepSeek.
Apple has indicated its OpenAI partnership is just not unique, and it could combine different corporations’ AI fashions into the iPhone sooner or later, resembling Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude. Cook dinner didn’t go so far as to counsel Apple would combine DeepSeek’s fashions, nevertheless.
Past OpenAI’s allegations of IP theft, a number of tech analysts have steered that DeepSeek’s AI fashions have been skilled with considerably extra GPUs and computation prices than the corporate claims. That may imply DeepSeek’s AI fashions weren’t skilled fairly as effectively as some suspected. Nonetheless, the Chinese language AI lab sells entry to its fashions at a steep low cost in contrast with what American AI labs cost.
Traders additionally peppered Cook dinner with questions concerning the success of Apple Intelligence. The phased launch of Apple’s AI options doesn’t seem to have created the instant increase to iPhone gross sales that some predicted. As an alternative, gross sales barely declined within the final quarter, in comparison with final 12 months. Hoping to spin the decline extra favorably, Cook dinner claimed the corporate noticed stronger gross sales in areas the place Apple Intelligence had rolled out than areas the place it had not.
Apple has confronted different points with its AI options, past their lack of availability. It lately paused its AI summaries of reports articles this month after the function produced deceptive headlines. In a single case, Apple Intelligence hallucinated and modified a BBC information headline to incorrectly learn that Luigi Mangione, the person charged within the homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself, which was unfaithful.
