SVP Of Software Engineering Craig Federighi Is Stoked About Apple Intelligence

The Craig Federighi you see on screen is the same Craig Federighi in person.

It’s easy to assume the on-screen persona of Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering during those big keynote presentations is some caricature. But Federighi actually is as he appears: a 6-foot-3 man full of earnestness. Known for his energetic spirit and immaculate hair—which is so stunning he’s been dubbed “Hair Force One”—the executive is just as warm in person as he is on screen. That’s a good thing. His disposition lets him distill complex concepts into accessible anecdotes for us regular-degular folks to understand. And that’s exactly what he did on September 9 at the beautiful Apple Park in Cupertino, California.

Alongside the shiny iPhones, the intriguing AirPods 4/Pro 2 (and the lackluster AirPods Max), and the sleek Watches, Federighi also spoke more about Apple Intelligence. Branded in a typically Apple way, Apple Intelligence is the company’s way of entering the AI race, and with the introduction of iOS 18—which is now available on all modern iPhones, including the iPhone 16 family—Apple Intelligence has made its official, public debut. (Kind of.) Integrating AI tools with ChatGPT into various Apple software (such as Notes to fix and rewrite errors, Mail to summarize those way-too-long threads, Photos to search for specific objects, and more), Apple Intelligence makes using your iPhone even easier.

While in California for Apple’s September event, I had the chance to chat with Craig Federighi about Apple Intelligence.

(This interview has been edited for clarity.)

Complex: Hello, Craig. It is such a pleasure to meet you.

Craig Federighi: Nice to meet you. Welcome to Apple.

Complex: How are you doing?

CF: I’m doing all right. It's a big day for us, obviously. It's, well… exhausting, but it's always exciting because we work on these products for so long and we're always excited to get 'em out to the world.

Complex: I know Apple intelligence has been something that's been in the works for a while now. So, why don’t you give me a quick little elevator pitch. Tell me what Apple Intelligence is. You've got seven seconds. The time of an elevator.

CF: Wow. Okay. Short ride. So I mean, Apple Intelligence is deeply enriching your experience with your iPhone, your iPad, and your Mac by bringing the power of generative models and personal context, and understanding of you and who you are in a really private—ways to enhance your whole experience on your devices.

Complex: With artificial intelligence being such a prominent conversation as of right now, I'm curious what the backbone of Apple intelligence is. What makes Apple intelligence, Apple Intelligence?

CF: Well, I mean there are several things. We have been working on the foundations of Apple Intelligence for so many years. The neural engine that has risen to such incredible power in the phones we just announced have roots many, many years back, but are so foundational to being able to run these powerful models on device.

We've been using machine learning and artificial intelligence in so many ways throughout the experience of our devices. Just taking a great photo today is about computational photography and using advanced models to meld multiple frames and draw out the right details. And so all of these foundations have been percolating here. And then with the rise of generative models, we saw how we could bring all that together with all of our principles around privacy, around on-device processing, around the knowledge that your device has data stored on it, and that it’s solely in your control, and how that could inform intelligence in a way that delivered a great experience, but one that stayed in your control and protected your privacy.

So, all of that had to come together, along with something we call “Private Cloud Compute,” which is the ability to take those privacy principles and extend them even out to the cloud. And so this was a massive effort that drew together all the parts of Apple to make it a possibility.

Complex: Something of a Herculean feat, if you will. Or like Sisyphus.

CF: [laughs] Well, Sisyphus had a really rough go of it.

Complex: Speaking of privacy, how is Apple handling user and data privacy and keeping that central onto the device?

CF: Yeah, yeah, that's so important because when you think about some of the early chatbot experiences, generally you're typing something into a text field on a webpage or something like that and getting a response. But for intelligence to be really meaningful, you want it to understand you and your context, what you care about, what you're doing. But you don't want to share all that information with unknown entities who are going to store it and do who knows what with it.

So we felt the same way we have about the way we've dealt with customer data from the beginning: that data needs to stay solely in the control of the user, not accessible to Apple as a company, not accessible to anyone else. And so the foundation of that, as you pointed out, is on device processing. If your data stays on your device and your device is what's processing that data, you're not sending it off somewhere, then that data is solely in your control. And that's the foundation of Apple Intelligence. 

Complex: So it's like end-to-end encryption. Or,I guess another way to think of it is like I have a briefcase handcuffed to me, and then I hand that to you and I lock that to you, and now it's locked to you, and then you pass the locked briefcase back to me.

CF: [laughs] Well, yeah. And the documents can never leave the briefcase. You close it up, it comes back to you, and nothing could have ever left the briefcase.

Complex: [laughs] Exactly. And then quick little Men in Black flash of the light and now the briefcase is completely forgotten.

CF: [laughs] Excellent. Yeah, I think you got all the components of the solution, but it took us a little longer than it took you to figure it all out. But that's what we built.

Complex: I love that. So yeah, where do you see Apple Intelligence in the next 10 years?

CF: Well, 10 years is a mighty long time in our business. And amazing things will happen. But I will say that these past major innovations, think about the introduction of the iPhone. It was an incredible beginning, but it was only the beginning. And here we are so many years later and seeing innovations like the App Store; there's so many other things that the iPhone has done. I mean, the iPhone barely took pictures in the first version, and now it's the greatest camera that most people will own.

And so in the same way, intelligence is going to grow in capability, it's going to grow in scope. If you look at the capabilities of Apple Silicon, which is so integral to the products, we're building the capability of doing more in more efficient ways so it can run all the time. So I mean, I think the sky's the limit, but the key is that Apple Intelligence is an intuitive and deeply integrated experience and one that respects your privacy. And that won't change, but we're going to be on this road for a long time to come.

Complex: I think the last couple questions for you. What is your personal favorite feature from Apple Intelligence?

CF: [laughs] Well, pick your favorite child, right?

Complex: [laughs] Exactly. Yeah. You have to choose.

CF: I love them all equally. I will say, I mean…probably the one that I end up experiencing the most is the way that Apple Intelligence automatically and continuously summarizes all the messages and notifications that are coming into me. All my email messages in my line of work that we get, as I'm sure yours as well; you're inundated with communication. How do you stay on top of it all?

And the fact that these smart models are able to pull out the essence of what I need to know and make that immediately visible for me to decide where I want to dig in is just tremendously useful in a way that is just super low overhead on me. But on the other end of the spectrum are features like Image Playground that I don't use every hour of every day. But when I do, it's so much fun. It was a crazy thing, but a couple days ago, it was our family dog's eighth birthday.

Complex: Oh, my goodness. Happy birthday!

CF: Yes, and for Bailey, it was time to celebrate. And I made an image of Bailey with a party hat and a birthday cake and sent it to the family group chat. I mean, it was great. It's a fun thing to celebrate. And so every one of these features has its place, and I think everyone's going to find their own favorite, but I love 'em.

Complex: Aw, I love that! Well then, last question, and I'll make it a fun one. Genmoji is cheating. So we're not going to talk about Genmoji. What is your favorite emoji?

CF: Oh, man. My emoji game has taken a step up with Genmoji, but pre-Genmoji. I'm an amateur. I swear I'm surrounded by emoji ninjas at work. And my emoji game is not worthy of discussion at this level. I don't think I can hold a candle to everything out there, but I have really enjoyed Genmoji, in part because they're personal. And so when I've communicated with my spouse about something that's going on with her, and to be able to incorporate not just like a face-palm emoji, but one that has her in it, it's next level, it's great. And I think everyone's going to take the game way above my level, but even with my limited skills, it's enriched my communication.

Complex: And I'm sure it's brought a lot of liveliness to the group chats that you're in.

CF: A hundred percent.