Microsoft plans to release a privacy-focused version of ChatGPT amid Apple’s apparent lack of control over emerging AI technologies, the information reports.
Microsoft’s Azure cloud server unit plans to offer a version of ChatGPT that runs on dedicated cloud servers where data is kept separate from other customers’ data later this quarter. Data on this isolated server will not communicate with the main ChatGPT system to maintain privacy. The service can cost up to 10 times what customers currently pay for ChatGPT.
The move seeks to attract companies, such as banks, financial services and healthcare organizations, that have avoided adopting ChatGPT for fear that their employees could inadvertently provide the chatbot with sensitive proprietary information. bloombergMark Gurman reported today that Samsung banned employee use of AI assistants like ChatGPT after discovering that employees had uploaded sensitive source code to the platform. The company is said to be concerned that data sent to AI platforms including Bing and Google Bard could end up being exposed to other users.
OpenAI has already sold its ChatGPT service to Morgan Stanley, which does not include Microsoft. The bank’s wealth management division already uses the service to allow employees to ask questions and analyze content in the bank’s thousands of market research documents.
Microsoft sales reps are reportedly already sending in inquiries from organizations about the upcoming product. Many large customers, including banks, have existing contracts with Azure, which could be helpful in convincing them that Microsoft will securely manage their data.
Last week, it appeared that Siri and Apple’s AI efforts had been severely hampered by organizational dysfunction and a lack of ambition. Allegedly, many Apple employees left the company because it was too slow to make decisions or because it was too conservative in its approach to new AI technologies, including large language models that support chatbots like ChatGPT.
Microsoft’s latest move appears to bypass Apple to introduce a privacy-focused AI chatbot in a fortified environment. Reportedly, Apple’s uncompromising stance on privacy and insistence on a high level of control over its products and services has created significant challenges to advancing Siri and the company’s investment in artificial intelligence technologies.
Apple has pushed for more “Siri” functions to be implemented on the device and the company appears to prefer to have its responses pre-written by a team of about 20 writers, rather than create artificial intelligence, to maximize privacy and control. This appears to have left the company out of the AI chatbot race, allowing Microsoft to show off Apple’s AI-favorite privacy credentials.