When Samsung introduced its AI features alongside the Galaxy S24, it billed the phone as its first with a built-in AI system — and, amid the current wave of AI hype, arguably the first smartphone to pack in such a broad range of AI features. In response to Samsung’s move to build AI directly into its phones, Apple is reportedly set to bring its own AI features to the iPhone, built on a large language model (LLM) developed in-house.
Given Apple’s usual focus on privacy and fast, responsive performance, it’s reasonable to expect the company to lean on-device for its AI features. These capabilities are expected to surface with iOS 18 at the upcoming WWDC 2024 event. While on-device AI has clear advantages in security and speed, it’s unlikely to match the raw power of cloud-server-based AI systems. Whether Apple ends up going purely on-device, and exactly what form these features take — automatic reply suggestions, smarter Siri requests, or something else — remains to be seen.
That approach marks a clear difference from Samsung, which blends on-device and cloud-powered AI, drawing on both its own LLM and Google’s Gemini. For AI features built this way, speed will naturally vary depending on the workload and complexity of the task at hand.