It has been almost three years since Apple changed how it holds special events because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, all events have been pre-recorded, with only the last two having guests there. But it seems that the company is now ready to go back to its traditional way of holding events, at least for its employees. The company will hold its annual in-house “AI summit” at the Steve Jobs Theater this month.
For those unfamiliar, the AI summit is an annual event described as a “WWDC for AI,” but only for Apple employees. This time, however, the event will be quite similar to those before 2020. That’s because Apple will be holding live, in-person presentations in the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park.
The news comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who reported on Monday that the internal AI summit will have the same formats as those pre-COVID. Even with in-person guests, the event will be streamed to other employees who are unable to attend it. This follows a report that Apple is easing its COVID-19 policies. As of this month, employees were no longer required to test for COVID-19.
But the fact that Apple will finally hold an event at the Steve Jobs Theater, which is the company’s main auditorium, makes us wonder if traditional media events will also make a comeback this year.
Last year, Apple invited a limited number of developers to attend WWDC directly from Apple Park. However, the event was also pre-recorded. Members of the press were invited to attend the iPhone 14 launch event in September 2022, but the keynote was also entirely pre-recorded.
What to Expect from Apple’s AI Event
Now talking about Apple’s AI event, it’s hard to say what to expect from it. After all, it is a private event for employees. However, Apple has been adding a lot of AI and machine learning based features to its devices recently. As noted by Gurman, this year’s Apple AI summit comes while platforms like OpenAI and ChatGPT are in the spotlight.
Hopefully we’ll see some of the results of this conference at WWDC 2023, when Apple is expected to announce its latest software.
Interestingly, the event will be held in the Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple HQ and the in-person event will be streamed to employees as well. So, essentially how Apple held media events pre-Covid. Have to wonder if Apple will also return to that for public product launches. https://t.co/uhLv4se9oW
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) February 6, 2023
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