Forget Apple Intelligence, for the enterprise there’s webAI

Shrouded behind the mists of Apple Intelligence, one of the more thought-provoking implementations of artificial intelligence for real-world business use doesn’t come from Apple; it comes from webAI. 

The rise of webAI

webAI is a crouching tiger, but not so hidden it didn’t get a mention when new Macs were introduced last week. The company’s AI-powered Companion assistant showcases what might happen when enterprises get hold of private, secure AI that runs locally. webAI claims Companion can be customized to handle almost any enterprise workload. (I’ve seen it trained up on proprietary enterprise data running on the new Mac Studio; It felt like a glimpse into the future of on-device enterprise AI.)

On-device, on-prem, on the ball

What sets webAI apart is that all the action takes place on the device. Remarkably, this intelligence doesn’t need a Mac Studio but can also run efficiently on an M4 MacBook Air. That means you can quite literally use AI to handle complex tasks on your Mac from anywhere you happen to be without worrying that your valuable enterprise data is going to be purloined on its journey to the cloud or intercepted by rogue intelligence agencies, such as the UK.

A new era for enterprise AI?

This development proves that businesses can deploy enterprise-grade AI without the risks associated with cloud connectivity. It also highlights the growing performance gap between Apple’s Macs and competing devices.

While the Apple Intelligence debacle is a serious blow to Apple’s credibility, the potential to use webAI and a Mac to deliver powerful business solutions indicates there’s plenty of life in the platform. Apple actually demonstrated this in action by running a 22 billion parameter webAI Companion model locally on a M4 MacBook Air during its launch. This suggests enterprises might not need to rely on cloud AI services, with all the associated risks of using them.

“Privacy is the founding principle of webAI, it’s in our DNA,” said webAI founder and CEO David Stout. “We are pioneering private AI that knows your business and runs on your devices, inside your walls, completely under your control.”

Tomorrow belongs to…?

As Apple continues to focus on both privacy and security on its hardware, the value of its solutions for enterprise users increases. With a robust Apple Silicon processor improvement roadmap ahead, there’s little doubt that the capabilities of the AI models your Macs can run locally will improve. 

If, and it’s a big if, Apple makes its Private Cloud Compute service available to third-party developers such as webAI, it could even enable enterprise development teams to deploy incredibly private AI systems, providing multiple benefits including enterprise-class personalized AI, Apple’s privacy and security, and the convenience of end-to-end encrypted cloud services.

Faster and furthur

The AI models we build today will run even more swiftly on the M5, M6, and M7 systems we already know Apple has planned. (Well, we don’t know that precisely, but we can easily surmise based on the current path). That’s a future for AI deployment in business that takes you into 2035, and beyond — all on the device, private, secure and at significantly lower cost than the computer clusters enterprise AI has traditionally required.

That you can run this on portable systems that cost $1,000 also means something, particularly as Windows 10 support nears an end. I predict reduced infrastructure costs, improved security and compliance, and an ROI that could make your finance teams weep with joy. And removing Windows from the equation may cheer some security professionals. 

Whatever next?

For enterprise users thinking about AI deployment, webAI appears to promise that migrating to a Mac might help companies actually realize the much -hyped benefits of AI at a pretty low cost, all protected within existing security and device management frameworks.

Final thoughts? While I’m disappointed that Apple failed to keep its own promises with Apple Intelligence and do think there will be repercussions for this (and not just in stock prices), when it comes to focused AI implementations that meet the needs of business and exploit the computational power of Apple’s hardware, I’ll be watching what happens with webAI. 

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