Apple Intelligence looks good, and the new Copilot looks even better. But most users won’t have access to these AI systems for a while yet. Although Apple and Microsoft are announcing them with great fanfare, they’re taking so long to roll them out that waiting for them is becoming annoying.
You can see it, but you can’t touch it. This situation isn’t unique to Apple and Microsoft. Other companies introducing new products take too long to get them to market.
Where’s my robot teacher? This situation happened, for example, with some of the demonstrations that OpenAI did with GPT-4o and its speech synthesis capability on iPhones. The examples were eye-catching—a private tutor, an aid for the visually impaired—but they didn’t quite make it to the mass market. It’s been five months since the announcement.
AI is a long time coming. The options recently released by Apple and Microsoft will take a long time to arrive. Apple Intelligence will start rolling out to users this month in a preview version in English with only some features. Siri improvements, for example, won’t arrive until March or April 2025. Some of the new Copilot features will only be available to members of the Windows Insiders program in English and certain territories. In both cases, the message is the same: The rollout will be slow and (very) gradual.
The EU is one step behind. The situation is even more worrying for European countries. The EU’s regulatory obsession is creating a world where AI is advancing at two speeds, and its inhabitants are losing access to these capabilities. Neither Microsoft nor Apple have given precise details on when these AI features will be available in the region. Tech companies are cautious—they want to avoid potential fines.
They don’t want to mess up. Those responsible for these options also understand that haste isn’t a good advisor. Rushing has already resulted in embarrassments for Google, with its over-inclusive images generated by Gemini. Apple, Microsoft, and other companies introducing these options will likely go extra slowly to avoid making a big mistake. It may happen, but the scale will be much smaller with such gradual rollouts. The reputational and economic risks are clear.
And maybe the features don’t offer that much. Offering AI features using this strategy is also a reasonable way to polish their products. It not only helps companies avoid mistakes but also lets them avoid backlash if users don’t like the features. This seems to be the case with Microsoft. Users haven’t received its efforts to add AI to Excel, Word, or PowerPoint particularly well. According to The Information, only 1% of its 400 million users utilize these features.
Users will have to wait. It seems clear that end users will have to be patient. It will take them time to enjoy many of these options. And if they’re in the EU, it will take even longer.
Image | Igor Omilaev (Unsplash)
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