Apple Just Joined Tech's Great Race to Democratize AI

Apple's iMac updates and new HomePod speaker drew most of the attention at the company's World Wide Developers keynote. But tucked away in the middle were a short few minutes in which software chief Craig Federighi casually launched Apple into one of the tech industry's fiercest competitions– the contest to help developers build the next generation of AI-powered applications. Federighi had already spent some time boasting how Apple was using machine learning to do things like make Siri smarter, or help users rediscover old memories in the Moments photo app. Then he announced that Apple would also be gifting some AI superpowers to developers. "We want to make powerful machine learning easy for you to incorporate in your apps," he said.