If you didn’t think AI was important, Apple may have sent the first signal to change that. Bloomberg reports that Apple has stopped its plans to build an electric car. Apple informed the 2,000-member team of those plans today. It’s thought that the impacted team members will be moved to Apple’s generative AI division.
Let’s keep in mind the future of Apple’s electric car plans was just rumors; there were never any official announcements that the tech giant planned to make a car for public sale. Rumors started in February 2015 and have been off and on for the last nine years. We heard last from Apple’s car division just a month ago. Apple had decided not to make a driverless car, instead choosing something similar to other electric or hybrid models.
Perhaps putting the electric car idea to rest for now is good. Apple has ways to catch up in the AI space, with Microsoft, Google, and Meta already having several interactions with their models, all readily available on consumer devices. Apple has yet to release any AI language model for its ecosystem publicly.
