Apple is Falling Behind Google and Amazon in the Race to Develop Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the new evolution in smartphone technology, and Apple is falling behind. 

According to Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Foundation professor of technology at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the focus of innovation has shifted from hardware to artificial intelligence. Apple as a market leader must watch out for this shift as it is falling behind Google and Amazon in developing AI. 

He wrote in Fortune, “While Apple’s newest iPhone offers some impressive hardware features, it does not represent the beginning of the next 10 years of the smartphone, as Apple claims."

For the past decade, focus has been on improving hardware for smartphones. After Apple’s iPhone was launched in 2007, technology firms raced to develop smartphones that were thinner, had powerful touch on glass displays, and could offer all kinds of services through applications. Now, hardware development has peaked, and the next step is getting artificial intelligence to the handheld device. 

AI has already established an irreplaceable space in our phones and the applications we use. From Amazon’s recommender systems, to Google Maps, to better search results, everything is now being powered by machine learning systems. 

Recently, Google Maps added the ability to find parking spots near your destination. And it is not asking local parking areas to provide it with this information. It is using AI to learn how easily other drivers in that area are able to find parking to tell you where you can park. 

Google and Amazon are far ahead of Apple in developing AI based services. Google’s new phone, Pixel 2, is offering hardware-integrated artificial intelligence, such as real-time language translation which will work with Google’s special headphones. 

Amazon’s Echo is on a similar path, and allows natural conversations with Alexa, their counterpart of Apple’s Siri. Echo offers AI-powered skills. Amazon has created an Alexa skills store, similar to Google’s App Store. But instead of asking third parties to create applications, it asks them to create skills which Alexa can perform, such as setting your kitchen’s temperature, opening your door’s locks, etc. 

Sawhney wrote that as focus of innovation shifts, so does market leadership. “ Apple has only to look at former dominant businesses like Motorola, Nokia, and Blackberry to understand how quickly a leader can fall from the peak in this market, and do its best to avert this outcome.”