WWDC24 For Advertisers
Was there anything for us?
Last week was Apple’s yearly developer conference (WWDC), where we heard about the latest hardware & software updates coming our way. Whilst the content is not directly addressing advertisers (like iOS updates or latest iPhone), it doesn’t mean there is nothing relevant. For example, Apple used WWDC17 to announce Intelligent Tracking Prevention 1.0, the start of a substantial shakeup in the way advertisers measure success across their mobile campaigns.
This was always going to be a big year with the expectation of Apple debuting their AI offering - but was there much to take away for advertisers?
From the point of view of an advertiser first (and tech enthusiast second), here are some of the standouts:
Promotions tab in Mail
We heard Apple will be adding email categorisation to the Mail app, including a promotion tab for marketing emails. Gmail launched this feature all the way back in 2013 so nothing groundbreaking, but a welcome addition.
Given this feature has been around for a long time on Android, marketers shouldn't need to drastically adjust their approach. However, it's still worth noting as Apple holds over 55% of email client market share compared to Gmail's 31%.
Ultimately those who have spent the time tweaking their approach and accounting for email filtering will be the winners - and it’s time to catch up for those who haven’t.
Apple’s AI play
Given how all-encompassing AI is becoming across big tech, Apple's decision to wait until the second half of the presentation before their announcement was quite refreshing.
We heard that underlying many of the new features talked about was “Apple Intelligence”. This is a group of models Apple has built and trained, with deep access to user data across the device (notes, emails etc..). This includes generative AI capabilities across language (rewriting emails in a different style or proof reading), visuals (diffusion images from preset themes, or even generative AI emojis) and audio (leaping Siri forward significantly). This will be baked into Apple operating systems across their latest devices, and available across first and third party apps.
Privacy was a central theme, and always a differentiator for Apple in the market. Whilst Apple Intelligence will process many tasks on-device, the realities of LLM (large language models) means the system may connect to Apple servers for certain tasks. Private Cloud Compute and their “verifiable privacy promise” were also touched upon, with both sounding like solid solutions to data privacy concerns.
When the Apple Intelligence models need more information, the user is prompted to share the query with a “frontier” model (with OpenAI’s ChatGPT announced). The idea is users get the best of both worlds - Apple Intelligence handling suitable tasks local and deeply personalised to that user, passing off to a frontier model if broader knowledge or specialist expertise is needed. It makes sense for Apple to focus on creating the tight ''Apple Experience'' expected of them, with smaller models that prioritises privacy and integrate seamlessly with their existing ecosystem.
There are big question marks around OpenAI and user privacy, but what has come out on this integration seems encouraging. When Apple Intelligence passes off to ChatGPT, no OpenAI account is needed, data is not logged and Apple will apparently even obfuscate the IP the request is being made from - all pretty positive.
The new APIs and integrations announced also sound promising for early adopters. It will be interesting to see which brands capitalise on these features to enhance user engagement with their offerings through a more powerful Siri.
Safari updated, but no web eraser
One feature missing from the announcements was Web Eraser for Safari. As the name suggests, this would have allowed users to selectively remove sections of a website they didn’t want to see, persisting across future visits and essentially acting as a build-your-own ad blocker for Safari, no extension required.
Publishers are already under significant pressure on the AI front, and this wasn’t well received, even addressing a letter to Apple that raised apprehensions over the feature.
We did, however, see a new Highlights feature which identifies information users might be looking for and displays it in a dedicated section next to the address bar. Reader was also upgraded, condensing the page content into a few lines, removing on-page distractions when digesting key content. In combination, this achieves much of the same thing as Web Eraser would have done, but does require slightly more effort to access.
The takeaway?
While WWDC2024 didn't offer any groundbreaking announcements for advertisers, the broader question lies in how AI tools will be adopted by users, and how that might impact the digital landscape.
Will we see notable drops in search demand as people turn to tools like Siri and it’s ChatGPT integration, rather than ad-funded search engines? Or will we see people still turn to search engines and use AI for queries where they simply need a reminder or the answer is cut and dry? Only time will tell.