Apple seems to be leaving no stone unturned to accomplish its AI dream, much expected to debut with the upcoming iOS 18, but as many would expect, this could merely be the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s to come in future updates. A new report claims that Apple had partnered with Shutterstock to use millions of images present at the stock image behemoth to train its AI model dataset.
This comes from a report from Reuters, which notes that Apple made a deal with Shutterstock to use their images, joining the likes of Amazon, Meta, and Google that have made similar agreements. The deal, likely worth $25-50 million, happened after the ChatGPT’s release in late 2022, meaning that Apple had been working on the technology since then. More importantly, it comes hot on the heels of a previous report from The New York Times suggesting Apple reached out to major publishers, including Condé Nast (publisher of Vogue and The New Yorker), NBC News, and IAC (owner of People, The Daily Beast, and Better Homes and Gardens).
As you know, Apple is already late to shine its AI armor, as rivals such as Google and Microsoft (with OpenAI) have stepped up. However, coming late to the party has its own perks. In the case of Apple, it wants to play it safe and avoid conflicts, which leads the company to plead or settle lawsuits. That’s why the company is playing it safe and ethically instead of scraping data from the web and inviting lawsuits from authors.
That said, Apple is expected to debut a bunch of AI features packed in its iOS 18 update, which is also believed to be the “biggest iOS update” in years, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. We will hear more about the upcoming update in the coming days, and the speculation builds upon the AI, expected to debut soon at the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — slated to take place from June 10 to June 14.