Apple starts user test with chatbot for support inquiries

As is well known, Apple rejects “real” chatbots – prefers to allow them to supply them by Openai. But now the iPhone group has started its first language model with a chat input: the Apple Support Assistant. There were first signs a few weeks ago, but now first users in the United States can try out the technology. It is in Apple’s official Support app for the iPhone And complements existing offers of help by chat, behind which real people are.

Apple warns like Openaai and Google

A “selected number of iPhone users” already sees the service Reports Macrumors – How these are selected is unclear. If you are in the test pool, you can press a chat button. Then more information about the “Chat with Support”, which is an “early preview”. “Try our automated chat function, a new way to find solutions quickly.” According to Apple, the system “frequent problems” can quickly be solved including troubleshooting and other answers as long as it is about “Apple products and services”.

If that doesn’t help, you can also be connected to Apple experts: “Support from the people who know Apple best.” However, Apple also warns that the chat bot can “make mistakes” and that it is an “experimental feature”-statements that have been known from Openai or Google for a long time when it comes to their AI products. “Check important information.”

Own terms of use for chatbot

The support chat bot itself is rather not very spectacular. Like similar products, it is only intended to provide information from the topic of support and products. The system is teeming free questions, and of course the chat bot does not know the devices that have not yet been available. How helpful the system is itself cannot yet be said due to less user reports. Mac & I itself has not been able to try out the feature so far. It is useful that chats can be escalated relatively quickly into a human supporter.

Which language model Apple uses for the support assistant is unclear. Loud “Terms of Use” (Conditions of use) it is “generative models” that “occasionally false, misleading, incomplete, insulting or harmful results. Apple has already integrated a AI-based support function in Apple Intelligence, which, however, does not work like a chat bot. The group has developed its own basic models, but most recently lost important employees to Meta.