Yesterday (9 September) Apple announced the iPhone 16, integrated with AI at its core, at the company’s ‘It’s Glowtime‘ product launch event live streamed from California.

The new iPhone model promises improvements to its Siri personal assistant with a new software roll out coming next month.

Anisha Bhatia, senior technology analyst at research and analysis company GlobalData said: “Minor improvements on the iPhone 16 aside, it was Apple Intelligence that stole the show at the event in Cupertino, marking a milestone for the tech giant.

“The new phone series is Apple’s first to be engineered from inception to fully integrate on-device artificial intelligence capabilities and includes its latest A18 series of chipsets.”

However, despite this, “Google will race ahead taking its Gemini AI models to 200 million Android devices by the end of 2024.”

As one of the last major Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to integrate AI into its devices, Apple Intelligence will focus on language, image, and action generation, drawing on personal context and will be supported by various on-device generative models.

The aim is that the AI will adapt and learn from user behaviour on each device to offer a tailored experience, with a full integration taking several years.

Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, said at the product launch: “The next generation of iPhone has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up. It marks the beginning of an exciting new era.”

Google has recently increased its hardware focus with new stores opening in Boston, Chicago, and Santa Monica trailing disappointing results in previous hardware sales.

Bhatia concludes: “The upcoming iPhone cycle is crucial for Apple after multiple years of lackluster sales, especially in China, regulatory scrutiny, and a loss in market cap to Microsoft and NVIDIA on the strength of their AI business. Apple will have to upsell its AI significantly.”