- Apple has introduced the Foundation Models Framework that will allow developers to integrate AI features into their apps.
- The new API uses Apple's on-device AI models so it can work in offline mode while preserving privacy.
- It's unclear whether Apple is using its older 3B model or an improved AI model for on-device inference.
Today, at WWDC 2025, Apple announced the Foundation Models Framework to allow developers to leverage the power of Apple’s on-device AI models. Developers can use the new API to integrate AI-powered features into their apps. This new framework utilizes Apple’s in-house AI models locally while preserving data privacy.
During the announcement, Apple’s senior VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, said:
We’re also taking the huge step of giving developers direct access to the on-device foundation model powering Apple Intelligence, allowing them to tap into intelligence that is powerful, fast, built with privacy, and available even when users are offline.
With the new Foundation Models API, developers don’t have to rely on third-party vendors like OpenAI and Google to power AI features into their apps. The best part is that AI features will work even in offline mode since Apple’s AI models run locally on the device, and there is no AI inference cost for developers.
That said, Apple has not demonstrated the capabilities of its in-house models. Last year, Apple showcased its on-device AI model which was trained on 3 billion parameters. The older model was closer to Google’s Gemma-1.1-2B and Microsoft’s Phi-3-mini models in terms of performance.
It’s unclear whether Apple is using the same AI model or if the company has trained an improved model for the local AI stack.
Apart from that, Apple opened up about Siri and said, “We’re continuing our work to deliver the features that make Siri even more personal. This work needed more time to reach our high-quality bar, and we look forward to sharing more about it in the coming year.”
So it looks like the upgraded, AI-powered Siri is coming next year. However, Apple Intelligence features are coming to more languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, and more.
