Ever since Apple rolled out its Apple Intelligence features, it has remained in the limelight. While users appreciated some AI features for making their lives easier, one feature got a lot of backlash. Yes, we’re talking about AI-powered Notification Summaries. We’ve come across several instances where Apple Intelligence provided incorrect summaries from incoming news app notifications. After facing quite a lot of criticism, Apple is working on an Apple Intelligence update to prevent the confusion caused by inaccurate summaries of news headlines.
Apple told BBC News that a software update is coming soon to clarify when Apple Intelligence has summarised notifications.
“Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback. A software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to report a concern if they view an unexpected notification summary.”
This statement comes after a BBC complaint over a false notification summary generated by Apple Intelligence. One AI alert claimed that Luke Littler had already won the darts finals before the championship tournament had even begun. Another notification said former Brazilian tennis player Rafael Nadal had come out as gay. Following these notifications, Apple AI was under fire. BBC News asked Apple to take action on these incorrect Apple Intelligence summaries because it hampers customers’ trust in their news organization.
For reference, Notification Summaries is an Apple Intelligence feature available on devices running iOS 18.1 or later. This feature groups multiple notifications from an app so you get a one-sentence overview of the content. While this feature was designed to help users scan multiple notifications faster and save time, it completely missed the mark. Unfortunately, Notification Summaries is sometimes stupid and sometimes hilarious, but it’s never 100% accurate. Most of the time, AI pulls the wrong details from the news and messes up the content completely.
There have been several reports that Apple Intelligence has provided incorrect or false details. In November, Notification Summaries incorrectly interpreted a story from The New York Times and suggested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested. Also, last month, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) asked Apple to disable the Notification Summaries feature after AI generated a headline suggesting murder suspect Luigi Mangione had shot himself. They further added that “generative AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the public.”
Fortunately, Notification Summaries are an opt-in feature and you can easily turn them off in the iPhone settings.
