Apple AI Launch Faces ‘Difficult and Long Process’ in China

Apple is reportedly facing hurdles in bringing its AI-powered iPhone to China. 

Government officials there say foreign tech companies will have to undergo a “difficult and long process” to gain approval unless they work with local groups, the Financial Times (FT) reported Tuesday (Nov. 26).

These comments from the Beijing government, the report notes, come as Apple CEO Tim Cook visits China for the third time this year as the company tries to untangle the country’s thorny regulations and bring its artificial intelligence (AI) offering — dubbed Apple Intelligence — to devices sold there.

According to the report, Apple has held discussions with Chinese tech firms to help launch Apple Intelligence, which the company began adding to American iPhones and other devices last month.

Sources told the FT that Apple has also considered running its own AI large language models (LLMs) in China.

However, a leading official at the Cyberspace Administration of China said it would be a comparatively “simple and straightforward approval process” for outside companies to use already-approved LLMs from Chinese tech firms.

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote recently about efforts by tech companies to capture mainstream users hoping to use AI for everyday tasks on their phones, following Google’s quiet rollout of its Gemini iPhone app.

As that report noted, this accelerating competition in consumer AI apps suggests a high-stakes battle for consumer attention and wallets as companies scramble to transform casual users into paying subscribers via features such as chatbots, photo editing and writing assistance.

“One good thing about AI-powered apps is their ability to create personalized experiences,” said Dmytro Tymoshenko, the CEO of Noiz, which creates AI-powered summaries of YouTube videos. “AI is able to analyze data at a very high speed, which allows it to, for instance, recommend content based on user preferences quite fast.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year the way about AI — and integration into social media — could impact the Chinese digital economy.

With companies such as Baidu, Tencent, ByteDance and Alibaba racing to leverage LLMs and generative AI (GenAI), experts say the trend could reshape commerce and consumer behavior in the world’s second-largest economy.

“AI may become the lifeblood of their ecosystems,” Lars Nyman, chief marketing officer at CUDO Compute, told PYMNTS. “AI’s ability to analyze vast amounts of data in real-time allows for hyper-personalized ad targeting. For instance, WeChat’s AI can predict what you might want to buy before you even know you want it.”

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