Apple now said to be talking to Tencent and TikTok owner ByteDance for AI features in China

Apple is reportedly in talks with Tencent and TikTok owner ByteDance to partner up on AI features in China. The talks are allegedly at a very early stage, so there’s still a chance nothing will come out of these.

Apple needs a Chinese partner for AI features because the Chinese government has to approve any generative AI services, and it obviously heavily favors local companies for such permits.

Apple started rolling out ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence, but ChatGPT isn’t available in China for the same reason outlined above.

Of course, any Chinese company that manages to partner with Apple to deploy AI services will instantly become a major winner in the country’s very crowded AI field.

Apple has previously been in talks with Baidu but according to a recent rumor the discussions faced “setbacks due to technical issues, including disputes over using iPhone user data to train AI models”.

The absence of any AI features on iPhones in China has become a pretty significant problem for Apple, which is seeing its market share decline in the world’s biggest smartphone market as a consequence.

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