Apple Intelligence and the future of P2P payments 🤖💸; Deal of the year: Affirm partners with Apple Pay to expand BNPL reach 👏😎

FinTech is Eating the World, 11 June

Hey Everyone,

Good morning & happy Wednesday! Today’s issue is a somewhat special one as we’re going deep into all things Apple. We’re going to look at Apple Intelligence and the future of P2P payments Apple just showed us (a holistic view of the most important AI improvements, why they matter & what’s next + a bonus dive into AI-driven Finance & how Apple can dominate here) and Affirm that just closed Apple to expand their BNPL reach (why it’s a deal of the year, what it means for both giants + a bonus deep dive into Affirm and why it’s about time to be very bullish on them). Let’s jump straight into the fascinating stuff 🌶

Apple Intelligence and the future of P2P payments 🤖💸

The news 🗞️ At Apple's AAPL 0.00%↑ annual WWDC event, the tech giant unveiled a suite of groundbreaking features powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and some really innovative payment solutions.

These advancements, integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, promise to transform the way users interact with their devices and handle financial transactions.

Let’s take a closer look at this and see why it matters.

More on this 👉 Let’s talk about AI first. Apple's new personal artificial intelligence system is deeply integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. It combines generative AI models with personal context to deliver useful and relevant intelligence while maintaining user privacy.

Here are the coolest AI features Apple just announced:

1. Free ChatGPT in every iPhone & Mac 🖥️

   

   • You can access OpenAI's ChatGPT right from Siri and ask questions about your files, documents, or photos

   • Share photos with ChatGPT and get suggestions

   • Create images and texts within documents with ChatGPT

2. New, AI-powered Siri 2.0 🤖

   • Apple has partnered with OpenAI to enable Siri to utilize ChatGPT for some requests

   • The updated Siri can determine intent, decipher complex queries, and respond to multiple questions in a row

   • It is integrated into core apps and supports typed requests

3. Photos app upgrades 📸

   • The Photos app gains AI-powered editing tools to make elaborate adjustments, remove unwanted objects/people from photos, and improve organization by recognizing people from contacts

   • Apple Intelligence also enhances the Memories feature, allowing users to create personalized movies by simply describing what they want to see

4. Proactive AI assistance 👋

   • Apple Intelligence takes a proactive role within apps to streamline tasks and optimize user interactions

   • This includes features like notification recaps, AI-enhanced autocorrect, browser summarization, speaker labeling in voice transcriptions, and more

   • These subtle AI enhancements aim to blend seamlessly into the user experience

What's interesting is that 99% of Apple Intelligence is powered by Apple's own proprietary foundational models (FMs). They built a host of their own FMs and used licensed content to train and fine-tune those models.

On top of that, Apple is using Apple Silicon in its own data centers - not NVIDIA NVDA 0.00%↑ chips - to power Apple Intelligence

The best part?

Private cloud compute allows Apple to draw on larger server-based models while protecting your privacy. Your data is never stored or sent to Apple 👏

FinTeech updates 📲 In addition to the AI advancements, Apple also introduced some really cool FinTech updates.

One of the most awesome ones is the Tap to Cash feature, which enables users to transfer money to another Apple Pay user nearby without exchanging personal details:

Apple's Tap to Pay is like PayPal’s Venmo or Square’s SQ 0.00%↑ Cash App but it's absolutely sick. More importantly, with this Apple basically solved P2P payments for 1.5 billion people 👏😎

The Wallet app also saw some updates, allowing users to view and redeem rewards or points balances, access installment financing options, and enjoy redesigned event tickets with integrated guides.

✈️ THE TAKEAWAY

What’s next? 🤔 First and foremost, we must note that Apple's AI is finally here and it's actually huge! At the core, Apple Intelligence will empower billions of people to experience AI for the first time, right on their devices, with a privacy-first mindset. Looking at the big picture, one really important thing is becoming very clear now - Apple is basically layering AI on top of the entire OS that will soon make your iPhone the closest thing to an AI agent anyone has done to date. And that’s a potential game changer, and doesn’t even come close to the AI parade & gimmicks that Microsoft or Google have been focusing on as of late. When it comes to FinTech, with Tap to Pay (which isn’t entirely new by the way) Apple basically solved P2P payments for 1.5 billion people. But here comes the crazy part... If you swap Apple Cash with Open Banking, or even better - an L2 protocol like The Lightning Network, you have the ultimate money experience of the 21st century. And that’s truly groundbreaking.

I guess AI-driven finance might be just around the corner…

ICYMI: Towards AI-driven Finance: Apple acquires another AI startup to boost on-device LLM processing 🍎🤖 [what this is, why it’s significant + a deeper dive into how it can power Apple’s lead in building AI-driven finance & more bonus reads]