How Will iPhone Owners Use Apple Intelligence?

It was difficult to miss last week’s announcement of Apple Intelligence, Apple’s consumer-facing effort to plunge into AI. At the 2024 WWDC, Apple unveiled AI features in upcoming iOS versions, including writing enhancements, advanced photo editing, and custom emojis. 

We thought of using CIRP data to begin to understand what Apple customers might think of these innovations. We looked at how iPhone owners use their devices. Based on their current use cases, Apple Intelligence could have a significant impact on the iPhone user experience.

We ask iPhone owners how often they use these apps or functions:

• Phone calling

• Texting

• Email

• Internet

• Gaming

• Photo viewing and editing

• Watching videos

• Listening to music

Apple Intelligence would have a significant impact on some, but not all of these. For example, it is aimed squarely at photo editing and composing text but would not really affect phone calls.

The two most popular uses of iPhones in the US are texting and accessing the Internet. 95% of owners report texting and using an Internet browser at least daily. The least popular of the top iPhone uses are taking and editing photos and playing games, with 61% and 64% of owners, respectively, using an iPhone for that purpose at least daily (Chart 1).