The tech world is excited about the possibilities of artificial intelligence, with many tech giants developing their own proprietary AI models and services. Users have a variety of AI tools and platforms to choose from, whether they’re looking for AI video generation, transcription services, or chatbots.
One of the latest AI services, Apple Intelligence offers an AI virtual assistant and other services with certain models of Apple devices. In this Apple Intelligence review, we’ll explore what Apple Intelligence does, its benefits and limitations, and alternative AI platforms to consider.
Apple Intelligence Review
Apple Intelligence is an AI model built into iPhones, iPads, and Macs. It learns user habits and preferences, drawing on their personal contexts to help them write, focus, organize, and more, directly from their own devices.
The Apple Intelligence AI is built into Siri to enhance the AI assistant’s capabilities and uses. It provides a new design and improves Siri’s language understanding, improving its ability to assist users.
Apple Intelligence Review
Let’s take a look at Apple Intelligence’s capabilities to help you decide if it will work for your needs.
What does Apple Intelligence do?
Apple Intelligence provides new AI capabilities meant to enhance Siri’s ability to act as a personal assistant for Apple users. It introduces richer language understanding and allows users to type to Siri and receive support, recommendations, and more, all personalized based on user context. With Apple Intelligence, Siri gains onscreen awareness, allowing it to understand and take action with items on your screen.
Apple uses a family of their own generative AI models to power Apple Intelligence, including on-device and server foundation models, a diffusion model (for image generation), and a coding model. Apple’s models are aimed at accomplishing the daily activities that users need on their devices, such as proofreading, summarization, and message replies.
Apple Intelligence Features
Just some of Apple Intelligence’s features include:
- Writing Tools: Provides AI writing tools with enhanced language capabilities to draft, proofread, rewrite, and summarize events or threads.
- Priority Notifications and Email: Notifications and emails are summarized for easy reference and listed according to priority.
- Summaries: Get summaries of emails, chats, and phone call transcripts.
- Smart Reply: Identifies questions asked in emails and offers relevant selections to draft a response in just a few taps.
- Image Wand: Creates original images and Genmoji based on text input.
- Onscreen Awareness: Understands and takes action in response to notifications on device screens.
Apple Intelligence Use Cases
Apple Intelligence’s capabilities are meant to make daily tasks on Apple devices easier, enhancing the personal assistant abilities of Siri. The suite of AI capabilities will allow users to streamline their communication, organization, and daily life.
With constant learning and understanding of users’ contexts, habits, and needs, Apple Intelligence will put everyday AI support at Apple users’ fingertips.
Pros
- Free to use for all Apple device users.
- Protects user privacy with on-device processing that understands personal information without collecting it.
- Access to ChatGPT for certain requests.
Cons
- Only available on Apple devices.
- Unavailable for many users, as only limited models of iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks are compatible.
- Only available for devices set to use U.S. English as their default language.
Apple Intelligence Alternatives
Given the limitations of Apple Intelligence’s availability and capabilities, you may want or need to consider alternatives.
Each of these AI platforms offers different kinds of AI tools that can accomplish similar goals as Apple Intelligence’s features.
1. Tavus API
Tavus API is the top Apple Intelligence alternative for video generation, with the ability to craft photorealistic content mimicking the facial features, expressions, and voice of the user. The AI model requires only a two-minute pre-recorded training video from users, and around 9 hours of training to generate a custom video avatar.
Once an avatar is trained, users can produce an unlimited amount of videos from a single template. This enables businesses to save the time and money required to record and edit many different videos.
Tavus also offers highly personalizable templates, enabling direct targeting of individuals without a labor-intensive editing process. Companies can build stronger customer relationships by providing specific suggestions and responses, building brand trust and increasing conversions.
Features:
- Phoenix Model: Generate highly realistic talking-head videos with accurately synced facial expressions, movements, and text input.
- Lip Syncing and Dubbing API: Tavus’ Hummingbird model enables translation into over 30 languages and seamless lip syncing of translated content for high-quality dubbed videos.
- Personalization at Scale: Highly personalizable templates can handle lengthy, complex variables to target specific individuals or groups.
- Seamless Integration: Tavus’ platform works seamlessly with platforms like HubSpot, Zapier, or Salesforce for easier workflow management.
Pricing:
- Starter: $1/month
- Hobbyist: $39/month
- Business: $199/month
- Enterprise: Contact Tavus’ sales team for pricing.
2. Grammarly
Grammarly is an AI writing and editing platform that reviews pieces of writing for errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It also checks for plagiarism and provides feedback and suggestions for improving clarity and correcting errors.
Features:
- Easy Integration: Works across over 500,000 apps and websites.
- Writing Assistant: Provides ideas and outlines for a variety of documents based on user prompts.
- AI Writing Partner: Provides writing suggestions matching user voice and allows personalization to make writing meet tone and content needs.
- Style Guide Consistency: Allows organizations to customize rules based on in-house style guides so employees can receive targeted suggestions for consistency.
Pricing:
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $12/month, billed annually
- Business: $15/member/month, billed annually
- Enterprise: Contact sales team.
3. Amazon Alexa
Amazon’s voice AI, Alexa, is an intelligent virtual assistant. It is a cloud-based service on over 100 million Amazon and third-party devices, and it can be used to control devices (including household devices like lights), set reminders, play music, and more.
Features:
- Smart Home: Connect lights, plugs, and thermostats to Alexa and use voice control to utilize each device.
- Productivity Support: Allows users to set reminders or timers, make shopping and to-do lists, check weather and traffic, and manage calendars.
- Entertainment: Users can connect various music, audiobook, and podcast platforms to Alexa and use voice activation to listen.
- Communication: Allows users to make calls or send messages with voice control.
Pricing: Free for use on all Alexa-enabled devices.
4. Otter.ai
Otter.ai is an AI voice-to-text transcription and automated workflow platform. It can generate meeting transcripts, summaries, and action items to streamline companies’ workflow and organization.
Features:
- AI Meeting Assistant: Provides automated transcripts, summaries, and action items after meeting.
- AI Channels: Combines live conversations with asynchronous updates.
- Otter AI Chat: Allows users to get answers to questions about meetings and generate content with text input.
- OtterPilot for Sales: Extracts sales insights, drafts follow-up sales emails, and records call notes.
Pricing:
- Basic: Free
- Pro: $16.99/month
- Business: $30/user/month
- Enterprise: Call sales team for pricing.
5. Google AI
Google AI is home to the Gemini AI ecosystem and Google’s AI research division, focused on creating AI products that are free-to-use and open-source. Services include image recognition and generation, conversational AI, personal AI assistants, and more.
Features:
- Gemini Chat: Provides suggestions to support tasks like debugging code, job interview prep, or drafting social media posts.
- PaLM 2: Google’s next generation language model with improved multilingualism, reasoning skills, and coding capabilities.
- Health AI: Google AI has partnered with healthcare providers, researchers, and industry leaders to create AI services to improve cancer screenings, expand access to various types of testing, help doctors practice for licensing exams, and more.
- Science AI: Google AI works with research institutions to create open source AI services that can generate quicker and more accurate predictions of weather, gain more insights into biodiversity, and more.
Pricing: Services like Google AI for Android are free-to-use. Pricing for other AI services in the Google AI suite varies, contact Google AI for more information.
More on Apple Intelligence
We’ve got answers to your lingering questions about Apple Intelligence.
Will Apple Intelligence be free?
Apple Intelligence will be free to use on limited Apple devices. Bloomberg’s recent article on Apple devices explains that Apple’s long-term strategy, however, is to make money off of their AI tools with a future service offering expanded features for a monthly fee.
Which iPhones will get Apple Intelligence?
Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone devices will include the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. AI features through Apple Intelligence will also be available on certain models of Apple’s iPad, Mac, and Macbook.
Will Apple Intelligence work on iPhone 14?
No, the iPhone 14 is not compatible with Apple Intelligence technology.
Will the iPhone 15 get AI features?
Not all models of the iPhone 15 will be compatible with Apple Intelligence AI features. These features will be available on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Discover the Best AI APIs for Your Needs
Apple Intelligence offers certain Apple device users new and expanded AI services to support their everyday needs. Since access will be limited, you may want to consider some of the alternatives we shared. No matter what AI service you’re looking for - virtual assistant, script generation, writing support, and more - there’s a tool for you.
And if video generation is what you need, look no further than Tavus API! With Tavus’ Phoenix model, you can generate ultra-realistic, custom video avatars to fulfill all your business needs. No more tedious re-recording and editing - let Tavus handle text-to-speech video generation, translation, lip sync, and marketing campaigns.
