Apple Ceases AI News Alerts After High-Profile Mistakes​on January 17, 2025 at 9:21 am

Apple has canceled its AI-generated news alerts after a series of high-profile SNAFUs.

The tech giant was facing mounting criticism over its Apple Intelligence service with complaints from the likes of the BBC, American journalists and news organizations over news alerts that appeared to come from these organizations and were either wrong or poorly summarized.

One high-profile example saw an alert generated by Apple from BBC News falsely tell readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself. An Apple-generated news summary claimed darts superstar Luke Littler had won the world championship final before it had even started, while another falsely told some BBC Sport app users that tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.

Journalists on social media had also slammed the feature for inaccurately summarizing major headlines on big American papers.

The BBC and journalism body Reporters Without Borders had complained to Apple Intelligence in mid-December, both calling on Apple to remove the technology.

“With the latest beta software releases of iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3, Notification summaries for the News & Entertainment category will be temporarily unavailable,” an Apple spokesperson told the BBC. “We are working on improvements and will make them available in a future software update.”

Yesterday, the BBC published guidelines on how it plans to use AI within its news coverage and TV shows, as it attempts to strike a balance between leveraging the tech while not over-using it.