Notification summaries came to the iPhone thanks to artificial intelligence in the latest versions of the operating system, just a couple of months ago. These summaries, generated by Apple Intelligence, are being criticized in some cases for highlighting incorrect headlines.
Although the company will not remove this feature, it plans to implement adjustments to clearly report when summaries have been created using AI.
Problems with notification summaries on iPhone
Apple Intelligence arrived in iOS 18.2 as an innovative solution to manage notifications in a much more efficient way, with a tool that uses artificial intelligence to summarize messages and notificationshelping users to have all the important information at a glance. In theory, it sounds perfect, but in practice, it has generated more than one headache due to the lack of success in the headlines generated.
In late December 2024, a notification summary generated by Apple Intelligence caused a stir by falsely reporting that a murder suspect, Luigi Mangione, had shot himself, based on a BBC news report. The AI misinterpreted the news and summarized it with a completely untrue headline. More recently, another error indicated that Luke Littler had won the PDFC World Darts Championship before the competition even started. These examples have led the press and users to question the reliability of the feature.
Apple has decided not to eliminate the feature, but to introduce an important improvement: AI summarized notifications will include a clear indication that they have been generated by Apple Intelligence and, therefore, may not be completely accurate.
In an official statement to the BBC, the company explained:
“Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we continue to make improvements with the help of user feedback. A software update in the coming weeks will make it clearer when the displayed text is a summary generated by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to report any issues if they see an erroneous summary.”
Why isn’t it that easy to fix?
The problem lies in the technology behind the summaries. These are generated using a language model that is refined over time as it is trained with more data. This means that there is no “quick” fix for the errors that are currently happening, and improvements will depend on a continuous process of adjustment and learning.
Although Apple is constantly working tirelessly to make AI more accurate, the company recognizes that it cannot guarantee perfect results in the short term. Therefore, the update to clearly indicate the use of artificial intelligence is a step towards a greater transparencybut not necessarily a solution to the incorrect headlines, which will still be there.
If AI-generated notifications have caused you problems or confusion, Apple allows you to disable the feature completely from the system settings. This could be a good option as the company works to perfect its artificial intelligence model.
