As someone who helped set up one of the first iPhones back in late 2007 on live TV, I found the launch of the first iteration of Apple’s smartphone an exciting time. At the launch in June of that year, a grinning Steve Jobs proudly held up that early device to the obvious delight of Apple fans.

Did the late Apple founder know then that he would change the future of mobile communication forever? That breakthrough device was revolutionary, transforming the way people interact with each other.

At a launch event on Monday September 9, Apple released details of its new iPhone 16, along with several other new products such as the Apple Watch Series 10 and Air Pods 4. The unveiling of the iPhone 16 could mark a turning point in the history of Apple’s smartphone brand.

Back in 2007, there were no other players in the market. Today, competition is fierce and there is a new factor in the mix that has the potential to shake up the smartphone market in the long term—artificial intelligence (AI).

The much vaunted new features based on AI are being marketed under the banner of “Apple Intelligence.” These include features for photo and video editing—something that other companies have made much of when launching new smartphones this year, such Google’s Pixel 9—but also features to help you edit text and generate your own AI images.

Since the release of the original iPhone, there have been a lot of changes at Apple. Jobs died in 2011 but his successor as CEO, Tim Cook, has provided a solid strategic direction for the company. Jony Ive, the industrial design guru behind many of Apple’s most famous products left the company in 2019 to set up his own design company, LoveFrom.

There have been more than 40 iterations of the iPhone, with variants that include the regular version, the Plus, Pro and Pro Max versions. Over 50% of Apple’s total revenue is generated by sales of the device.

As such, it still forms the cornerstone of the company’s business, which now includes associated products such as the aforementioned AirPods and watches. There’s also the Apple Vision Pro, a “mixed reality” headset which layers digital elements over a view of the real world. Other sectors of Apple’s business now include cloud storage along with TV and filmmaking.

However, Samsung, Google, OnePlus, Xiaomi and an abundance of other players in the smartphone market are all vying to find a place in your pocket for their smartphone. With such fierce competition in the phone market, Apple—and those other companies—have previously concentrated on improvements to the features they already offer.

That means faster processors, longer battery life with faster charge times, improved camera technology, larger storage capacity, better WiFi and Bluetooth, instant payment technology and more robust, titanium cases with near indestructible screens.

However, there is now a rush to incorporate AI into phones and indeed into other Apple devices. This is not an area that has been emphasized to the consumer much before now, but Apple has recently begun heavily trailing its Apple Intelligence features.

Google and Samsung have also made much of AI features in launches for their smartphones this year. So could AI be a game changer in a market that has until now been all about incremental improvements?

As a researcher into AI, I spent this summer looking at the features of this technology, which of course has been around for many years. We have now reached a point in the development of AI where it will undoubtedly change the way we work and live.

The new iPhone 16 with Apple Intelligence will offer a number of AI-based tools to enhance the user experience. This will include proofreading, rewriting, and summarizing text, an enhanced ability to detect objects in images and videos, such as faces and descriptions. It will also include the ability to generate images by describing what you want to create in a text or voice prompt, image editing features and the ability to create personalized emojis.

One intriguing AI-enabled feature is called Visual Intelligence. This allows you to search for content on whatever you can see through your phone with the help of a new camera control button on the side of the iPhone 16. One of the examples given during Apple’s Monday launch event was the ability to take a photo of a restaurant and instantly pull up opening hours, a menu and ratings, without having to manually input that information into a search engine.

Users could also take a photo of a poster for an event they see in the street. The iPhone 16 will automatically add it to their calendar, along with other details such as the time and location.

There will also be important AI-based improvements to Apple’s digital assistant technology, Siri. The assistant will better understand and respond to complex requests, perform actions within apps more seamlessly, better understand content from apps and provide more relevant information.

Additionally, Siri is expected to have a better understanding of user behavior and be able to make suggestions, offer intelligent replies as options in messages and record and transcribe phone calls.

These new features will be an exciting addition to the AI features already making their way into other smartphones. For example, Samsung has a live language translation feature within calls, which can give human translators a run for their money.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A new study finds there are two simple editing changes companies can make to their annual reports that improve investor confidence.

At issue are so-called “material weaknesses in internal control.” Internal controls are practices that prevent companies from inadvertently misrepresenting any aspect of their finances in their public-facing financial statements. Material weaknesses in internal controls refer to any problems that make the internal control system less effective.

“Material weaknesses in internal controls are bad news for investors, who rely on financial statements to make investment decisions,” says Joe Brazel, co-author of a paper on the work and Jenkins Distinguished Professor of Accounting in North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management.

“That’s why the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires companies to disclose the effectiveness of their internal controls. For this study, we wanted to see if the language companies use when making those disclosures has an effect on how investors respond.”

“Specifically, we wanted to look at two things,” Brazel says. “First, how do investors respond when companies are defensive when disclosing material weaknesses, compared to taking more accountability for the weaknesses? Second, how do investors respond when companies use first-person pronouns when discussing material weaknesses, as opposed to referring specifically to management?”

For the study, the researchers first analyzed 200 internal control reports from publicly traded companies to assess the language they used when disclosing material weaknesses. This allowed the researchers to determine which communications approaches were most common. The researchers then enlisted 96 MBA students to serve as investors for an experiment designed to assess how investors respond to various communication approaches.

The researchers found that the most common approach among publicly traded companies was to use defensive language in conjunction with first-person pronouns.

“What’s striking is that this is the exact opposite of what our experiment found to be the most effective communication approach,” Brazel says.

The experiment found that nonprofessional investors are more willing to invest in a company when management doesn’t use first-person pronouns and takes a less defensive position.

“Study participants responded better to internal control reports that said management is aware of the limitations that internal controls have and are developing safeguards to reduce those limitations,” Brazel says.

“Prior communications research tells us that being defensive when conveying bad news can actually exacerbate the negative response in stakeholders,” says Brazel. “And by using first person pronouns—we, us, our—more of the blame is placed on management.

“On the other hand, being less defensive improves the stakeholder response. And—perhaps ironically—explicitly referencing management, rather than using first-person pronouns, limits the extent to which any negative response is associated with the managers.

“The takeaway here is that the words we use matter a great deal,” says Brazel. “And given that we’re talking about how reports are phrased, this is a very low-cost intervention that companies can use to improve investor confidence.”

The paper, “Management’s Communication Style when Disclosing Material Weaknesses in Internal Control,” is published in the journal Accounting Horizons.