Amazon and Apple just told us more about their AI plans – here are three things we learned

AI tools may have not yet proven to be a consumer tech revolution on the scale of the internet or even electricity, external, as many tech executives have promised for years. But there is still huge demand from people for new technology.

Google said last week that 950 million people are using its Gemini chatbot at least once a month, three times the users it had a year ago.

Apple on Thursday said that new versions of its core products, the Mac computer, iPhone and iPad, have been selling better this year than the company planned for or expected.

So much so that it warned investors, external that sales of such products would slow down, because Apple is unable to get enough of the microchips that would be required to meet buyer demand.

The company is, however, anticipating a lot of excitement from Apple users for its impending update of Siri, its AI voice assistant within its products that is getting an overhaul with the help of Google’s Gemini chatbot.

Outgoing chief executive Tim Cook said Apple already has plans to charge users who wish to make heavier use of the new Siri, given feedback received from user testing so far.

“We’re off-the-charts excited about Siri AI”, Cook said. “We do believe there will be people who want to use it – a lot.”