Apple Intelligence will be the gift that keeps giving

The iPhone 16 arrives in stores and users’ hands next week. But one of its tentpole features—Apple Intelligence—won’t be available until October. And even then, the full AI feature set will release as a slow drip over the coming year. While some may see that as a bad thing, I think Apple will ultimately benefit from the progressive rollout. Here’s why.

Staggered Apple Intelligence rollout

This coming Monday, Apple’s major new OS updates will arrive. iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and more will all launch at once. But they won’t have any AI features in them.

Instead, Apple’s first release of Apple Intelligence will be in October. They’ll debut as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 for users with a compatible device.

This first AI launch will include the following features:

• Writing tools to proofread, rewrite, and more
• Notification summaries
• The new Siri with some of its coming upgrades
• Clean Up and Memory creation in Photos
• Mail and Safari content summaries
• plus AI-powered Focus mode, transcript summaries, and more

Then, a couple months later in December, Apple will have another AI drop ready.

iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 are expected to bring the following new Apple Intelligence capabilities:

• Genmoji, for creating custom emoji
• Image Playground and other image generation tools
• ChatGPT integration for Siri and writing tools
• possibly Siri’s personal context awareness too
• plus, AI will come in localized English to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom

That’s it for 2024. But in 2025 there will be even more Apple Intelligence on the way.

Some of the biggest features left unreleased heading into the new year will revolve around Siri. Apple’s assistant will, likely with iOS 18.3 in the spring, be able to perform a wide variety of new in-app and cross-app actions. It will also gain awareness of content on your screen.

Why Apple benefits from regular AI feature drops

There are two big reasons why I think Apple will benefit from releasing Apple Intelligence gradually over the year ahead.

First, and perhaps most obviously: AI is worth going slow to get right.

Apple doesn’t want the Pixel 9 problem, or the countless other headlines spawning from AI going off the rails.

Apple Intelligence will still have a beta label when it arrives, which should set some expectations. But overall, if Apple can minimize PR headaches and user frustration by only releasing features when they’re actually ready, it will be a win.

Second, I think a constant drop of new AI features will bolster Apple’s reputation as a major AI player, and bring users a gift that keeps giving.

If Apple released all of its AI features at once, in next week’s iOS 18.0, it would get a strong news cycle…then nothing.

By the time WWDC 2025 rolled around, everyone would be talking about how Apple hasn’t done anything AI in forever. It would continually be seen as ‘behind’ in AI.

Regular feature drops via software updates is the better way to go for Apple’s reputation. It gets to be the company that’s constantly shipping new AI features, and to hundreds of millions of devices.

Users, meanwhile, get to continue receiving more and more AI value from their shiny new iPhone 16, or Mac or iPad.

Apple’s staggered AI rollout is almost certainly due to the full feature set not being ready yet. But I think it actually works in the company’s favor.

Apple Intelligence isn’t just a group of features in a single software update.

It’s a set of powerful upgrades that will make Apple devices better every couple of months moving forward.

And help Apple look like an AI leader in the process.

Do you think the staggered AI rollout will hurt Apple, or help them? Let us know in the comments.