When iOS 18 is released with the iPhone 16 this September, it is widely expected that Apple will make its first foray into the game-changing world of generative AI, taking on the likes of Samsung's Galaxy S24 in that field.

Yesterday, the iOS 17.4 beta arrived, and 9to5Mac did a little digging and found evidence that Apple is testing artificial intelligence internally. The company is indeed working on its own model, codenamed Ajax, as previously revealed.

According to the site's description, the code includes a reference to a private framework called "SiriSummarization" that makes calls to the ChatGPT API. This appears to work with prompts such as "Please summarize," "Please answer this question," and "Please summarize the given text."

9to5Mac is keen to point out that Apple does not intend to use ChatGPT permanently. Rather, it appears to be testing Ajax against two more established models: ChatGPT and FLAN-T5. In short, it appears that Apple is using its own on-device AI and viewing the results against the cloud-based ChatGPT (although the report adds that there is also a version of Ajax that works off-device as well).

The included system prompts also seem to mention processing when input is received from iMessage or SMS, suggesting integration with the Messages app; Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has previously reported that Ajax works with Messages to "type a question, and the text to autocomplete."

In the same report, Gurman writes about the "mandate" from Craig Federighi's software team to ensure that iOS 18 is "filled with features that work on the company's large language model." It appears that this early achievement is currently being tested within iOS 17, even if it is not accessible from outside Cupertino.

It was previously reported that Apple is taking a different route in artificial intelligence training than its rivals in the field, demanding access to publishers' archives for training purposes in exchange for millions of dollars (and legal liability if something goes wrong).

The official launch of iOS 18 is expected in September, but the beta version will be released at WWDC, usually held in June, and will be available for an early experience before that. Both the event and the beta itself are primarily for developers, but should still give an early indication of how the newly enhanced Siri will shape up against its more established rivals.