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Peter Griffin: BusinessDesk tech columnist on Apple announcing an AI upgrade for Siri · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: All right to your phones. Siries getting a makeover as
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  Speaker 2: Apple catches up in the AI race. The update, to
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  Speaker 2: be launched later this year, will have a more conversational
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  Speaker 2: chatbot and help across apps like Safari, and it could
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  Speaker 2: bring the fifteen year old assistant Siri up to speed
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  Speaker 2: with all its AI competitors, because Apple has been losing
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  Speaker 2: out to AI competitors. Pete Griffin is the tech columnist
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  Speaker 2: for Business Desk and he joins me, Now, hello Peter.
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  Speaker 3: Hey to Andrew.
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  Speaker 2: Very good. So what does the upgrade do?
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  Speaker 3: Well? You know the key thing I think people will
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  Speaker 3: realize when this actually comes to fruition, because they haven't
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  Speaker 3: put an exact date on that yet. It will remember
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  Speaker 3: the conversations that it's had with you, and it will
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  Speaker 3: be able to carry on a conversation, not just starting,
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  Speaker 3: you know, another query. It will remember if you ask
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  Speaker 3: it about the weather or you're planning a trip, or
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  Speaker 3: remember all of that context to inform its next answer.
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  Speaker 3: So that makes it genuinely more useful. Now, this is
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  Speaker 3: something that they've teamed up with Google to provide people
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  Speaker 3: will be familiar probably with Google Gemini, which is the
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  Speaker 3: chatbot that Google has built with artificial intelligence. Apple has
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  Speaker 3: been working on its own upgrade of Siri for a
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  Speaker 3: couple of years now. It's been sort of an abortive
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  Speaker 3: attempt to do that. So it's thrown in the towel.
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  Speaker 3: It's got Google in and so behind the service will
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  Speaker 3: lie those Google, uh you know, AI tools.
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  Speaker 2: I understand she's going to be a little bit more
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  Speaker 2: expressive as well, so she's she's gonna she's going to
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  Speaker 2: have some vocal fry in there. But the thing is,
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  Speaker 2: is this enough to take on the AI powerhouses like chat,
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  Speaker 2: TPT or the Gemini that you mentioned.
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  Speaker 3: Look, I don't think really that is in the sites
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  Speaker 3: for Apple, you know, being like Anthropics claud or open
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  Speaker 3: Ai where people pay, you know, a lot of money
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  Speaker 3: every month to have this as a productivity tool in
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  Speaker 3: their life. This is really to supercharge the features on
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  Speaker 3: the iPhone or on your Mac. You know. So you
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  Speaker 3: talked about the Safari brows and making that more intelligent.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe in your camera being able to talk to your
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  Speaker 3: photos app to select a number of photos or search
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  Speaker 3: your photos. That sort of thing. Apple isn't going after
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  Speaker 3: the ones that have focused more on business applications off AI.
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  Speaker 3: But there's a lot of expectation here because they sort
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  Speaker 3: of failed the first time around. That was seen as
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  Speaker 3: a big strategic blunder for Apple, So they've got a
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  Speaker 3: lot to live up to here. And the market didn't
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  Speaker 3: really respond that well to the announcement today because they
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  Speaker 3: seem to be hedging their beds. They haven't put a
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  Speaker 3: firm announcement for when they're going to launch this. They
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  Speaker 3: won't be launching it in Europe until later for some
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  Speaker 3: legal or regulatory reasons. So it's not a very convincing
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  Speaker 3: story and we'll just we'll have to wait and see
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  Speaker 3: how useful this actually is. Because, as we've discussed before,
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  Speaker 3: trust in artificial intelligence is relatively low all around the world.
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  Speaker 3: The last thing Apple wants to do as a supposedly
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  Speaker 3: high trust tech player is eroded even further.
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  Speaker 2: And all this is happening as chief executive Tim Cook
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  Speaker 2: bids farewell. So they're taking the advantage with new management
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  Speaker 2: to revamp the products.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're putting in the guy who was their
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  Speaker 3: head of hardware, so that shows that they're still committed
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  Speaker 3: to hardware being at the center of the Apple experience.
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  Speaker 3: They'll probably come out with some smart glasses. That's the
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  Speaker 3: next big product off the line. And yeah, so I
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  Speaker 3: don't think that the AI thing really is a shining
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  Speaker 3: beacon for Tim Cook as he departs, what he delivered
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  Speaker 3: over the last decade of fifteen years was actually incredible
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  Speaker 3: billions of dollars of wealth for shareholders just by propping
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  Speaker 3: up the monopoly. Really that is the iPhone. It's just
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  Speaker 3: a juggernaut and continues to make a lot of money
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  Speaker 3: for that company.
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  Speaker 2: And speaking of the iPhone, they've been pumping out updates
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  Speaker 2: all the time. I mean, I think worked to number
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  Speaker 2: twenty six, number twenty seven. I'm still on eighteen because
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  Speaker 2: I don't have enough storage. Are they pumping out these
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  Speaker 2: updates too much? And are we are we failing to
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  Speaker 2: keep up with them?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, so twenty seven is coming out, you know, just
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  Speaker 3: some incremental tweets, And I think that is where we're
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  Speaker 3: at in the mobile space at the moment. You don't
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  Speaker 3: need to upgrade every year or even every three years.
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  Speaker 3: I know people like you who have a decade old iPhone.
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  Speaker 3: Eventually they will cut off access to certain services just
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  Speaker 3: just because they can't continue the security updates and that
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  Speaker 3: sort of thing. But the real messages. Be quite happy
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  Speaker 3: buying last year's model of the iPhone, and you'll get
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  Speaker 3: it for two thirds or even fifty percent of the price.
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  Speaker 2: That's why I'm still on an iPhone twelve many well.
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  Speaker 3: Good, good for you. You're getting value for money.
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  Speaker 2: Anti. I love my little phone, and I thank you
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  Speaker 2: so much. Peter Griffin from Business Desk.
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