Why We're Betting on Apple Intelligence

# Why We're Betting on Apple Intelligence

Point of View · 716 Ventures · April 2026

> Apple Intelligence belongs in the core of the product, not in a settings toggle.

## Overview

Most teams still bolt a chat box onto an otherwise conventional app. Apple Intelligence is a different layer: on-device models, system frameworks, and context that lives outside any single screen.

If you are still designing screen-by-screen flows and planning to "add AI later," you are designing for the wrong platform.

## The Shift

For the last decade, apps have been deterministic.

You tap a button, something happens. You fill out a form, it stores data. Everything is rigid, predictable, and honestly a little dumb.

Apple Intelligence breaks that model.

**A new interaction model.** The system can read intent from what you mean, not only what you tap. It can work in the background, act on your behalf, and change behavior as it learns how someone uses the app. Intent from speech and text; background work when the user allows it.

That means the app is no longer the center of the experience. The user is. And the intelligence sits between them.

## Why Apple

We are not interested in duct-taping cloud APIs onto a web shell and calling it AI. Apple's stack is on-device first, wired into the OS, and built around platform conventions.

**It's on-device first.** Sensitive data can stay on the device. That matters for privacy and for latency—you are not waiting on a round trip for every inference. On-device processing; context that persists locally.

**It's deeply integrated.** This is not a chatbot in a sidebar. It sits inside the OS, shares frameworks with your app, and can see context across apps when the user allows it. System frameworks; cross-app context.

**It respects the platform.** macOS and iOS already have strong interaction models. Apple Intelligence extends them instead of replacing them. Native patterns first; extensions, not replacements.

## What This Unlocks

We ship fewer rigid wizards and more software that can interpret messy input—voice, partial text, half-finished tasks—and carry work forward without making the user learn another UI dialect.

- You describe what you want → the app structures it
- You start a task → the app can continue it in the background

## Why It Matters

Most teams still ship features screen by screen. We start with what the system can interpret, then decide what UI still needs to exist.

If you build the old way:

- Features ship as separate screens
- AI arrives in a later release

If you build this way:

- AI is part of the interaction model from day one
- The product changes as people use it

## Our Approach

We treat Apple Intelligence as infrastructure, not a marketing bullet on a feature list.

**How we build.** Design for interpretation first. Use system intelligence instead of rebuilding it. Keep sensitive logic on-device. Let the app run alongside the user instead of demanding constant attention.

There is still a line between helpful and intrusive. Most teams cross it. We try not to.

## The Bottom Line

The UI may not look radically different on day one. The architecture underneath does. We are building for that layer.