Apple Selects Alibaba Over Deepseek To Handle its iPhone AI in China

The recent hype surrounding the successful launch of DeepSeek had many thinking iPhone maker Apple just might select them to power the Apple Intelligence platform in China.

However, we can confirm that this is not happening as the company has selected to move ahead with Alibaba for all iPhone models sold in China. The Cupertino firm was said to have been in discussion with different companies to determine which one could be capable of the features of Apple Intelligence.

As per reports from The Information, Apple was aiming to take Baidu on board but it failed to meet their standards. Therefore, it had to select other possibilities and the hunt continued for a few months now.

The company assessed various models created by Tencent, Bytedance, and Alibaba. And in the end, the latter has come out on top for Apple. However, the firm failed to share more details about when it would launch Apple intelligence in the country.

We know that Apple is adding support for different languages in two months. This includes those users based in China, Korea, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Vietnam. However, adapting to the Apple Intelligence in various models will take a longer time.

It’s very much possible that Apple partners with all of them or different firms in China to offer the best LLMs along with the iPhone AI. They have done the same with ChatGPT beginning with the iOS 18.2 variant.

We first heard about Apple Intelligence making a launch in America late last year with the latest iOS 18.1 design. While the company no longer needs more users inside America, it's nowhere near the level that other players could reach.

Apple Intelligence might be working well with ChatGPT but the results published so far show that it’s far behind on the long list of possibilities offered by rivals including Google, OpenAI, and DeepSeek. We hope to see the tech giant experimenting with iOS 18.4 at any given moment in time. The new software update was teased in a way to bring greater screen awareness for Siri.

While the iPhone maker might be delaying the feature later on for iOS 19, we might be seeing more major changes rolling out in the year 2026.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: CIRP Report Reveals iPhone Owners Breaking Upgrade Patterns, What’s Driving the Shift?
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

CIRP Report Reveals iPhone Owners Breaking Upgrade Patterns, What’s Driving the Shift?

According to the latest reports from CIRP, there is a change in iPhone upgrade patterns which were especially seen in the last quarter which ended in December 2024. Many of the users stopped using the “younger” models of iPhone as compared to users in the previous quarter. 36% of the users in December 2024 said having their previous phones with them for two years or less as compared to 31% who said this in December 2023. Only 33% of the buyers of newer iPhone models had their previous models with them for more than three years in December 2024 while 30% had them for two to three years in December 2023.

Many of the investors and analysts are also asking the question about how often users are upgrading their iPhone models because users upgrading their iPhone models every one to two years makes a big impact on the company. But if the users do not upgrade their iPhone models for 3 to five years, it can impact the company in a negative way.

• Also read: Planned Obsolescence: A Tactic Used by Manufacturers Which Makes You Buy More

Analysts suggests that users quickly upgrading to new iPhone models can be due to Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence is available in newest models of iPhone so users of iPhone 15 and older models may find the new feature in newest models interesting. Tim Cook also says that iPhone 16 is better performing in sales than iPhone 15 and demands for the newer model are high because of Apple Intelligence.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Mobile Apps Are Stealing Your Data — Even the Ones You Least Expect

According to a new research conducted by Nsoft, we are not safe from apps on our mobiles stealing our data and companies collect this data for different purposes. There are some apps like Roblox, Duolingo and Candy Crush that we do not think of as invasive to our privacy that are stealing our data even if they claim that they do not. Candy Crush says that it gives 10% of collected data to other companies while Duolingo says that 20% of the collected personal data goes to other companies and the rest of the data is used by apps for analytics and functionality.

Social media apps also collect users’ personal data massively and some social media apps even use 90% of the user data for app functionality for contacts and messaging. Some of the social media apps which do this are Instagram, LinkedIn, Messenger, TikTok, Snapchat and Threads. Meta apps share 68.8% of users data with third parties and it is an alarming and worrisome situation. WhatsApp Business also requires a lot of invasive information of users (57.1%) as it doesn't have end to end encryption and Meta can read or record messages shared within the app.

YouTube and Amazon also take too much of user data, with YouTube sharing 31.4% of user data to other companies and Amazon sharing 6% of user data with third parties. YouTube is owned by Google and other Google apps like Gmail, Google Maps and Google Play are also among the top 20 most invasive apps which share customer data with other companies. PayPal is the seventh most invasive app, collecting 65.7% of data for purposes like financial information, search history, contact list, browsing history, photos and videos.

There are some apps like weather apps and delivery apps that need your location data no matter what but even though Uber is on the list of invasive apps, Lyft or Doordash isn't. After analysing it, it was found that Uber uses more specific information for tracking than Lyft does because it needs the data to track online activities of users. Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble also use a lot of personal information because it is needed for a chance at love or even romancing scams.

If you want apps to not collect your private information, make sure to read all the privacy reports and terms and conditions of the app before downloading it. It is also good if you delete extra apps from your mobile phone that you haven't used in a while.

Read next: AI Faces Skepticism in Moral Decision-Making Despite Advancements, New Study
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

OpenAI Is Introducing New Models But How Much Is Too Much?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman just debuted the company's latest AI agent dubbed Deep Research.

The full 03 reasoning AI model is sure to give rise to an autonomous assistant that is designed to scour online pages and other digital scholarly sources for data regarding a certain issue. The agent can comply with new reports while users go about their business in different tabs.

You can even leave your PC behind as a whole, allowing the agent to produce several minutes or a few hours with alerts. Unlike Google’s Deep Research, the value of OpenAI 03 Deep Research was witnessed by many in the outside AI world.

It was first shared as a product that only those with the ChatGPT Pro subscribers could benefit from. However, this time around, it’s going to be up for grabs to free and Pro users.

Obviously, those getting it for free have limited uses as compared to those paying for the subscription. While 10 does seem like a reasonable amount, it all depends on how well the agent works. The goal is to encourage more people to upgrade to higher-cost plans to avail more benefits.

If you happen to be a free ChatGPT user, two uses per month are limited to queries or things you’re in search of with Deep Research. However, the company should hope the latest 03 Deep Research launch is worth that price tag.

Next, Sam Altman is clearing the air about how AI models are not going to shy away from sensitive categories. They will refrain from making assumptions that seem out of their view. In a new and updated version of the Model Spec, the company shared how the models will not attempt to steer users in the pursuit of a better agenda, either through direct or indirect means.

The company strongly feels in matters like having intellectual freedom that entails freedom to hear and discuss concepts. This is why Sam Altman is promoting greater transparency and avoiding certain viewpoints that could be shunned forever. It might also have to do with the growing amounts of political pressure in everyday life.

Many of the current President’s closest allies such as Elon Musk and David Sacks went out to accuse AI agents of censoring data linked to conservative views. Some accused the company of being too woke and unreliable about political subjects.

OpenAI says it has major plans to make its models simpler than before as it tries to ship non-reasoning models like GPT-4.5. This is usually a very rare admission from a tech organization. After all, most of these product releases are not differentiated enough for various clients.

This is why Altman just took to the X app to mention new updates on the product and acknowledge so many of the organization’s recent releases. They wish to do some better jobs of sharing and simplifying. They would like AI to work and not complicate models which so many previous designs have been accused of.

The number of models that users can select totally depends on the subscription tier. Altman explained how the firm would like to combine its technology including the o-series of models into the latest GPT-5 when it comes down to APIs and ChatGPT. For the past one year, OpenAI shared its GPT-40, o1, o3, and o3-mini models. It also rolled out the latest ChatGPT subscription tiers such as the $200 per month ChatGPT Pro subscription.

Above all, the organization shared its Operator agent called Deep Research where it tasks ChatGPT and a few other new features that aren’t available via specific designs or paid levels.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: New Study Shows ChatGPT Doesn’t Use as Much Energy as Most Assume
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

New Study Shows ChatGPT Doesn’t Use as Much Energy as Most People Assume

According to a new study from Epoch AI, ChatGPT doesn't consume as much power as many people think. The energy ChatGPT consumes depends on how it is being used and what model of ChatGPT is answering the queries. The estimates from most sources say that answering one question with ChatGPT requires 3 watt-hours of power which is 10 times more than what it takes for Google search to answer one question. But Epoch AI says that ChatGPT using 3 watt-hours of power for one query is too high and OpenAI’s GPT-4 model only takes 0.3 watt-hours to complete one query which is even less than the power used by household appliances.

The environmental challenges with AI’s energy consumption have become a heated topic because AI companies are continuously expanding their infrastructures. Recently, about 100 organizations have signed an open letter which is urging the industry to ensure that new AI data centers which are being built do not harm the environment. So the industries are asked to rely on non-renewable energy sources.

The researcher on the study, Joshua You, said that there is a lot of discourse about how much energy is going to be used in the future but there hasn't been conversations which accurately portray AIs energy consumption right now. He said that AI using 3 watt-hours per query seems too high and it was based on some of his older research and rough calculations. OpenAI hasn’t shared how much its models use energy per query but You says that 0.3 watt-hour seems like an accurate figure. The analysis hasn't calculated the extra energy used by ChatGPT like for processing longer inputs or image generation.

AI is getting more advanced and it is going to require more energy for handling complex tasks in the future. By 2030, it is predicted that training cutting-edge AI models will require 8 GW of energy which is equal to eight nuclear reactors. Joshua You says that people who are concerned about AI’s energy footprint should stop using AI models like ChatGPT or opt for smaller models like GPT-4o-mini.

Read next: AI Chatbots Drive Higher Engagement and Transactions Than Search Traffic
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

AI Chatbots Drive Higher Engagement and Transactions Than Search Traffic

According to a new study of over 7 million sessions, conducted by Kevin Indig, AI chatbot traffic from platforms like CoPilot, ChatGPT and Perplexity converts better than traditional search traffic. The data which was analyzed was mostly from e-commerce purchases and software sign-ups. Even though traffic from AI chatbots is still less than 1% of total organic traffic, it is growing quickly and will play an important role in future digital marketing.

The study found that 80% of the transactional traffic to the top 10 landing pages goes to sites like eBay, Amazon and Walmart, which are dominating Google Search as well as AI chatbots. Microsoft also shows up often on AI chatbots because of people searching for software like Teams or CoPilot. The sites that are dominating search results are also leading in AI but AI chatbots are becoming more conversational, meaning that ranking factors are going to emerge which will allow LLMs to determine their own ways of visibility.

The traffic on AI chatbots is also more engaged than search traffic, measured by session duration and number of page views per session. However, referrals on AI chatbots are longer than Google traffic like CoPilot which has an average session duration of 11.6 minutes. On the other hand, AI chatbots have an average duration of 10.4 minutes as compared to Google which has 8.1 minutes of session duration. AI chatbots are also gaining transactions with Perplexity and CoPilot seeing bigger increases in pageviews than Google. Even though CoPilot has not as many page visits as Perplexity, it is still showing better engagement as it is integrated in all of Microsoft’s devices and software.

The study also looked at how deep the traffic is going into a website as AI chatbots are also sending more traffic to homepages. ChatGPT sends 30% of its traffic to home pages while Google sends only 10%. AI chatbots are also sending traffic to deeper pages than Google which is sending visitors to second as well as third-level pages. This shows that AI chatbots are driving more engaged traffic which is spending more time on sites. This is also leading to more viewing on pages, making them better potential for conversions. This raises the question whether AI chatbots can improve user engagement by directing users to more specific pages instead of home pages. But it is too soon to say anything because search features of AI chatbots are still under development and will take a long time to get trained over most of the web.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

71.5% Use AI for Search, Yet Only 14% Rely on It Daily as Traditional Engines Dominate

According to a new survey by Higher Visibility, most users are using AI just as a complementary search engine and not a replacement, with only 14% of the respondents using AI tools for search daily. Overall, 71.5% of the respondents said they use AI tools for search, with 79.8% reported using Microsoft Bing and Google for informational searches. 20.2% of the respondents of the survey said that they have changed their primary search engines in the last year. Even with people using AI tools for search, traditional search engines are still dominating but SEO is becoming difficult with click through rates on Google declining everyday. People are switching to AI tools and social media sites for searches and they are playing a role in people’s search habits.

The survey also found out AI search trends amongst different generations, with Gen-Z being the generation to use AI tools for search the most. 82% of the Gen-Z have been using AI search tools every now and then and they are also using social media for product discovery. Millennials are using AI tools as well as traditional search engines, while 65% of the Gen-X are also using AI tools every now and then but still prefer traditional search engines. Baby Boomers are using AI tools the least (45%) for search engines but they still use the traditional search engines the most.

It was also found that people are using different types of platforms for different purposes like Americans prefer traditional search for general information but use Microsoft Bing and Google for initial product research. AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT and Bard are being used by respondents for product recommendations and comparisons while discovery based shopping is preferred on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook and Nextdoor. Specialized product searches are mostly done on platforms like eBay and Etsy. Local business searches are mostly preferred on Google Maps, Social Media, Business Profiles and Review Sites.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World