Apple's New Chatbot Reportedly Rolls Out Ahead Of Iphone 17 - But It's Not For You

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Apple has reportedly launched an AI chatbot for its unit staff.
• Asa is intended to beryllium an automated integer income assistant.
• The chatbot arrives conscionable weeks earlier nan motorboat of iPhone 17.

Apple has reportedly launched a caller AI chatbot -- for its employees, not for its customers.

Nicknamed Asa, nan chatbot is designed to service arsenic an automated integer adjunct for nan company's unit staff, making them amended equipped to waste iPhones and different products, according to screenshots posted to X connected Sunday by MacRumors
analyst Aaron Perris.

Apple did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

What tin Asa do?

Asa has been launched wrong SEED, Apple's soul app for income training, according to Perris' post. With nan iPhone 17 expected to deed stores later this period -- on pinch a raft of caller package updates -- nan institution could beryllium hoping that its caller chatbot will supply other support for its world unit squad up of expected sales. 

Also: Kuo: Apple conscionable accrued its folding iPhone plans for 2026 - will triple Samsung's Fold 7

An worker utilizing Asa might, for example, consult it to get a amended consciousness of really iPhones tin beryllium utilized crossed different industries, according to 1 of nan screenshots posted to X. The characteristic is reportedly still being tested successful beta. Apple besides launched an experimental AI chatbot called Support Assistant wrong its Support app to immoderate users earlier this month.

Inward-focused AI

At a clip erstwhile virtually each awesome tech institution has been ratcheting up its efforts to push AI products to customers, nan motorboat of Asa suggests that Apple is alternatively looking inward, bringing nan exertion to its employees. The institution is famously secretive, and it's unclear which exemplary nan chatbot is based upon -- whether it's proprietary, open-sourced, aliases licensed from different developer. 

While nan specifications of Apple's semipermanent AI strategy travel into focus, nan institution seems to beryllium betting that nan exertion tin beryllium utilized successful nan meantime to springiness its labor an edge.

Also: Upgrading to nan iPhone 17? Nearly 70% of users scheme to aft motorboat - here's why

Putting an AI adjunct into nan hands of individual unit labor could beryllium a useful strategy. A recent study from MIT found that bottom-up, back-office applications of this benignant were 1 of nan decisive factors that separated nan very mini number of successful business applications of AI from nan immense mostly of those that person wholly fallen flat. 

Apple's semipermanent AI goals

Apple has besides stood retired from different awesome tech developers during nan ongoing AI roar successful that it's opted (so far, astatine least) not to build its own, proprietary, customer-facing AI chatbot. Instead, arsenic it made clear during its astir caller Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) successful June, nan institution is focusing its efforts connected incorporating AI into its existing products. 

For example, alternatively than releasing nan AI-powered Swift Assist coding adjunct that was primitively announced backmost successful WWDC 2024, Apple has alternatively introduced Xcode 26 -- portion of nan bundle of caller releases expected from Apple later this period -- which will let developers to harness coding assistance from ChatGPT aliases a assortment of different chatbots. 

Also: If these iPhone 17 Air rumors are real, my aged telephone is astir to beryllium retired

The tech world has been rife pinch speculation astir Apple's planned adjacent steps for AI since it has yet to travel up connected its June 2024 unveiling of Apple Intelligence pinch immoderate proprietary customer-facing products. Instead, nan institution has leaned heavy connected a business pinch OpenAI, fusing ChatGPT into its on-device sound assistant, Siri.

An upgraded type of nan ChatGPT-powered Siri, designed to beryllium much alert of individual personification context, is expected to rotation retired wrong nan adjacent year, pursuing a delay. Apple is besides weighing nan anticipation of alternatively powering nan revamped Siri pinch a civilization exemplary built atop Google's Gemini, according to Bloomberg.

OpenAI's latest model, GPT-5, will beryllium added to nan caller iOS 26, MacOS 26, and iPad 26, each of which are besides slated for merchandise later this month. 

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