The App Store could soon offer AI-generated summaries of user app reviews
The App Store could soon introduce AI-generated summaries of users' application reviews. Here's what we know about the feature so far.
The App Store could soon feature Ai-generated summaries of application reviews.
On Monday, Apple released iOS 18.1, which made Apple Intelligence available to the general public. With Apple Intelligence, it's now possible to receive summaries of emails, messages, and notifications with the help of Apple's generative AI software.
Now, it appears as though the iOS App Store is set to receive a similar feature, which will allow for AI-generated summaries of user-provided app reviews. While there are no clear indications as to what these summaries will ultimately look like, we do know quite a few details about them.
As originally spotted by 9to5mac, Apple's review summaries will likely be shown alongside app descriptions and screenshots when users view the main page of an App Store application. The information surrounding these new AI-powered summaries was reportedly found on an unlisted App Store page.
As long as an application has a sufficient amount of user reviews, Apple will generate a summary that highlights the most common customer feedback related to a particular application.
The company's new App Store review summaries will be updated every time an application receives a new review from a user. Developers will also have the ability to report a summary they deem to be inaccurate.
Apple is using AI models for more than just consumer applications
It's worth noting, though, that these app review summaries will only be available in select countries and regions, though it is unclear which ones. The ultimate goal of these summaries is to provide users with a clear picture of an app's reviews, so that they may more easily decide whether or not to purchase or install a particular application.
While there are currently no details as to how the summaries themselves will be created, Apple will likely employ internal variants of its existing large language models for corporate tasks such as these. The snippet shared in the report doesn't say AI-generated summaries, but given the description of the feature and per-country availability, it is likely based on AI generative technology.
An app may have a summary that highlights the most common customer feedback and sentiment in user reviews about the app. The summaries are refreshed as new reviews are added. Summaries are available in select countries and regions and for apps with enough reviews to provide a summary. They appear on the app's product page. If the summary is inaccurate or has another issue, you can report a problem.
In one of our earlier reports, we outlined how internal applications and environments used for the testing of Apple's Ajax LLM in Apple's pre-release operating systems. These test applications were used while Apple Intelligence was still in development, at the time going by the codename Project Greymatter.
Apple's App Store review summaries could arrive in the near future, as references to the feature can already be found in the App Store API. The company has been adding more and more AI-related features with every new iOS 18 update. The iOS 18.2 developer beta recently introduced support for Image Playground and Visual Intelligence on iPhone 16.
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Comments
No one will be pointing a gun at anyone's head forcing them to read the AI-generated app review summaries. In the same way, no one is compelled to read those summaries on Amazon.com.
That said, the summaries on Amazon are indeed a faster way at digesting multiple reviews without reading each one individually. If a product on Amazon has 56 reviews, you are free to read all of them but in many cases I don't really have the inclination to do so. It's really just a text-based companion to the existing star-based rating system.
If an Amazon product has a 4.5 star rating from thousands of reviewers, I'm going to consider that more than a 1-star product with 18 reviews.
I can't possibly read thousands of individual reviews and tabulate the star ratings of those reviews that I deem believable.
For Amazon star ratings, perhaps more interesting is the graph that shows the number of entries for each star score. If a product has a bunch of 4 and 5 star ratings but also a large number of 1 star ratings, I become very wary and will usually pass. This is more useful than just the average star score.
Everyone is free to choose whatever they want to consult for their product purchase. If you don't want to read AI review summaries or consult the star rating table, that's fine. You can just buy something because it's pretty.
But ultimately Amazon, Apple, et al prefer to have happy customers. Happy customers return. It is not in their best interest to have AI tools generate garbage.
I presume that these AI-generated summaries will improve over time. The first instance you see them will not be the final, end-all version of the review summary system.
Remember that all consumer-facing AI features at this point are the alpha or early beta stage. There is no consumer-facing AI right now that is anywhere near to being release quality. If you take this viewpoint, you should know that there will be times that AI is right, AI is full of nonsense, or just laughable. People with common sense should be able to navigate through these assessments fairly easily but there is a sizable percentage of people with little or no common sense. Nothing Apple, Amazon or anyone else can do about those people.