Apple has reportedly launched an AI chatbot, but it's not for the iPhone 17 (or you)

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

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

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

Nicknamed Asa, the chatbot is designed to service arsenic an automated integer adjunct for the company's retail staff, making them amended equipped to merchantability 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 interior app for income training, according to Perris' post. With the iPhone 17 expected to deed stores aboriginal this period -- on with a raft of caller bundle updates -- the institution could beryllium hoping that its caller chatbot volition supply other enactment for its planetary retail squad up of expected sales. 

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

An worker utilizing Asa might, for example, consult it to get a amended consciousness of however iPhones tin beryllium utilized crossed antithetic industries, according to 1 of the screenshots posted to X. The diagnostic is reportedly inactive 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 large tech institution has been ratcheting up its efforts to propulsion AI products to customers, the motorboat of Asa suggests that Apple is alternatively looking inward, bringing the exertion to its employees. The institution is famously secretive, and it's unclear which exemplary the chatbot is based upon -- whether it's proprietary, open-sourced, oregon licensed from different developer. 

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

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

Putting an AI adjunct into the hands of idiosyncratic retail employees could beryllium a utile strategy. A recent survey from MIT found that bottom-up, back-office applications of this benignant were 1 of the decisive factors that separated the precise tiny number of palmy concern applications of AI from the immense bulk of those that person wholly fallen flat. 

Apple's semipermanent AI goals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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