At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for Machine Learning and AI Frameworks. What are you most excited about in the Foundation Models framework? The Foundation Models framework provides access to an on-device Large Language Model (LLM), enabling entirely on-device processing for intelligent features. This allows you to build features such as personalized search suggestions and dynamic NPC generation in games. The combination of guided generation and streaming capabilities is particularly exciting for creating delightful animations and features with reliable output. The seamless integration with SwiftUI and the new design material Liquid Glass is also a major advantage. When should I still bring my own LLM via CoreML? It's generally recommended to first explore Apple's built-in system models and APIs, including the Foundation Models framework, as they are highly optimized for Apple devices and cover a wide range of use cases. However, Core ML is still valuable if you need more control or choice over the specific model being deployed, such as customizing existing system models or augmenting prompts. Core ML provides the tools to get these models on-device, but you are responsible for model distribution and updates. Should I migrate PyTorch code to MLX? MLX is an open-source, general-purpose machine learning framework designed for Apple Silicon from the ground up. It offers a familiar API, similar to PyTorch, and supports C, C++, Python, and Swift. MLX emphasizes unified memory, a key feature of Apple Silicon hardware, which can improve performance. It's recommended to try MLX and see if its programming model and features better suit your application's needs. MLX shines when working with state-of-the-art, larger models. Can I test Foundation Models in Xcode simulator or device? Yes, you can use the Xcode simulator to test Foundation Models use cases. However, your Mac must be running macOS Tahoe. You can test on a physical iPhone running iOS 18 by connecting it to your Mac and running Playgrounds or live previews directly on the device. Which on-device models will be supported? any open source models? The Foundation Models framework currently supports Apple's first-party models only. This allows for platform-wide optimizations, improving battery life and reducing latency. While Core ML can be used to integrate open-source models, it's generally recommended to first explore the built-in system models and APIs provided by Apple, including those in the Vision, Natural Language, and Speech frameworks, as they are highly optimized for Apple devices. For frontier models, MLX can run very large models. How often will the Foundational Model be updated? How do we test for stability when the model is updated? The Foundation Model will be updated in sync with operating system updates. You can test your app against new model versions during the beta period by downloading the beta OS and running your app. It is highly recommended to create an "eval set" of golden prompts and responses to evaluate the performance of your features as the model changes or as you tweak your prompts. Report any unsatisfactory or satisfactory cases using Feedback Assistant. Which on-device model/API can I use to extract text data from images such as: nutrition labels, ingredient lists, cashier receipts, etc? Thank you. The Vision framework offers the RecognizeDocumentRequest which is specifically designed for these use cases. It not only recognizes text in images but also provides the structure of the document, such as rows in a receipt or the layout of a nutrition label. It can also identify data like phone numbers, addresses, and prices. What is the context window for the model? What are max tokens in and max tokens out? The context window for the Foundation Model is 4,096 tokens. The split between input and output tokens is flexible. For example, if you input 4,000 tokens, you'll have 96 tokens remaining for the output. The API takes in text, converting it to tokens under the hood. When estimating token count, a good rule of thumb is 3-4 characters per token for languages like English, and 1 character per token for languages like Japanese or Chinese. Handle potential errors gracefully by asking for shorter prompts or starting a new session if the token limit is exceeded. Is there a rate limit for Foundation Models API that is limited by power or temperature condition on the iPhone? Yes, there are rate limits, particularly when your app is in the background. A budget is allocated for background app usage, but exceeding it will result in rate-limiting errors. In the foreground, there is no rate limit unless the device is under heavy load (e.g., camera open, game mode). The system dynamically balances performance, battery life, and thermal conditions, which can affect the token throughput. Use appropriate quality of service settings for your tasks (e.g., background priority for background work) to help the system manage resources effectively. Do the foundation models support languages other than English? Yes, the on-device Foundation Model is multilingual and supports all languages supported by Apple Intelligence. To get the model to output in a specific language, prompt it with instructions indicating the user's preferred language using the locale API (e.g., "The user's preferred language is en-US"). Putting the instructions in English, but then putting the user prompt in the desired output language is a recommended practice. Are larger server-based models available through Foundation Models? No, the Foundation Models API currently only provides access to the on-device Large Language Model at the core of Apple Intelligence. It does not support server-side models. On-device models are preferred for privacy and for performance reasons. Is it possible to run Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) using the Foundation Models framework? Yes, it is possible to run RAG on-device, but the Foundation Models framework does not include a built-in embedding model. You'll need to use a separate database to store vectors and implement nearest neighbor or cosine distance searches. The Natural Language framework offers simple word and sentence embeddings that can be used. Consider using a combination of Foundation Models and Core ML, using Core ML for your embedding model.

I’m keep looking around documentation and some sample codes but still haven’t found example of how was used this type of Network Regressor . Does it take some special parameters to perform on ANE , what size,format of DataFrame ?

In my quantization code, the line: compressed_model_a8 = cto.coreml.experimental.linear_quantize_activations( model, activation_config, [{'img':np.random.randn(1,13,1024,1024)}] ) has taken 90 minutes to run so far and is still not completed. From debugging, I can see that the line it's stuck on is line 261 in _model_debugger.py: model = ct.models.MLModel( cloned_spec, weights_dir=self.weights_dir, compute_units=compute_units, skip_model_load=False, # Don't skip model load as we need model prediction to get activations range. ) Is this expected behaviour? Would it be quicker to run on another computer with more RAM?

Hi everyone, I’m currently exploring the use of Foundation models on Apple platforms to build a chatbot-style assistant within an app. While the integration part is straightforward using the new FoundationModel APIs, I’m trying to figure out how to control the assistant’s responses more tightly — particularly: Ensuring the assistant adheres to a specific tone, context, or domain (e.g. hospitality, healthcare, etc.) Preventing hallucinations or unrelated outputs Constraining responses based on app-specific rules, structured data, or recent interactions I’ve experimented with prompt, systemMessage, and few-shot examples to steer outputs, but even with carefully generated prompts, the model occasionally produces incorrect or out-of-scope responses. Additionally, when using multiple tools, I'm unsure how best to structure the setup so the model can select the correct pathway/tool and respond appropriately. Is there a recommended approach to guiding the model's decision-making when several tools or structured contexts are involved? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts or being pointed toward related WWDC sessions, Apple docs, or sample projects.

Hello. I am willing to hire game developer for cards game called baloot. My question is Can the developer implement an AI when the computer is playing and the computer on the same time the conputer improves his rises level without any interaction? 🌹

WWDC25: Combine Metal 4 machine learning and graphics Demonstrated a way to combine neural network in the graphics pipeline directly through the shaders, using an example of Texture Compression. However there is no mention of using which ML technique texture is compressed. Can anyone point me to some well known model/s for this particular use case shown in WWDC25.

Hey Tried using a few regular expressions and all fail with an error: Unhandled error streaming response: A generation guide with an unsupported pattern was used. Is there are a list of supported features? I don't see it in docs, and it takes RegExp. Anything with e.g. [A-Z] fails.

I'm implementing an LLM with Metal Performance Shader Graph, but encountered a very strange behavior, occasionally, the model will report an error message as this: LLVM ERROR: SmallVector unable to grow. Requested capacity (9223372036854775808) is larger than maximum value for size type (4294967295) and crash, the stack backtrace screenshot is attached. Note that 5th frame is mlir::getIntValues<long long> and 6th frame is llvm::SmallVectorBase<unsigned int>::grow_pod It looks like mlir mistakenly took a 64 bit value for a 32 bit type. Unfortunately, I could not found the source code of mlir::getIntValues, maybe it's Apple's closed source fork of llvm for MPS implementation? Anyway, any opinion or suggestion on that?

Hi, I'm currently using Metal Performance Shaders Graph (MPSGraphExecutable) to run neural network inference operations as part of a metal rendering pipeline. I also tried to profile the usage of neural engine when running inference using MPSGraphExecutable but the graph shows no sign of neural engine usage. However, when I used the coreML model inspection tool in xcode and run performance report, it was able to use ANE. Does MPSGraphExecutable automatically utilize the Apple Neural Engine (ANE) when running inference operations, or does it only execute on GPU? My model (Core ML Package) was converted from a pytouch model using coremltools with ML program type and support iOS17.0+. Any insights or documentation references would be greatly appreciated!

I watched this year WWDC25 "Read Documents using the Vision framework". At the end of video there is mention of new DetectHandPoseRequest model for hand pose detection in Vision API. I looked Apple documentation and I don't see new revision. Moreover probably typo in video because there is only DetectHumanPoseRequst (swift based) and VNDetectHumanHandPoseRequest (obj-c based) (notice lack of Human prefix in WWDC video) First one have revision only added in iOS 18+: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vision/detecthumanhandposerequest/revision-swift.enum/revision1 Second one have revision only added in iOS14+: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vision/vndetecthumanhandposerequestrevision1 I don't see any new revision targeting iOS26+

The developer tutorial for visual intelligence indicates that the method to detect and handle taps on a displayed entity from the Search section is via an "OpenIntent" associated with your entity. However, running this intent executes code from within my app. If I have the perform() method display UI, it always displays UI from within my app. I noticed that the Google app's integration to visual intelligence has a different behavior-- tapping on an entity does not take you to the Google app -- instead, a Webview is presented sheet-style WITHIN the Visual Intelligence environment (see below) How is that accomplished?

the specific context is that i would like to build an agent that monitors my phone call (with a customer support for example), and simiply identify whether or not im still put on hold, and notify me when im not. currently after reading the doc, i dont think its possible yet, but im so annoyed by the customer support calls that im willing to go the distance and see if theres any way.

I’m trying to follow Apple’s “WWDC24: Bring your machine learning and AI models to Apple Silicon” session to convert the Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.2 model into a Core ML package, but I’ve run into a roadblock that I can’t seem to overcome. I’ve uploaded my full conversion script here for reference: https://pastebin.com/T7Zchzfc When I run the script, it progresses through tracing and MIL conversion but then fails at the backend_mlprogram stage with this error: https://pastebin.com/fUdEzzKM The core of the error is: ValueError: Op "keyCache_tmp" (op_type: identity) Input x="keyCache" expects list, tensor, or scalar but got state[tensor[1,32,8,2048,128,fp16]] I’ve registered my KV-cache buffers in a StatefulMistralWrapper subclass of nn.Module, matching the keyCache and valueCache state names in my ct.StateType definitions, but Core ML’s backend pass reports the state tensor as an invalid input. I’m using Core ML Tools 8.3.0 on Python 3.9.6, targeting iOS18, and forcing CPU conversion (MPS wasn’t available). Any pointers on how to satisfy the handle_unused_inputs pass or properly declare/cache state for GQA models in Core ML would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance for your help, Usman Khan

Posting a follow up question after the WWDC 2025 Machine Learning AI & Frameworks Group Lab on June 12. In regards to the on-device API of any of the AI frameworks (foundation model, vision framework, ect.), is there a response condition or path where the API outsources it's input to ChatGPT if the user has allowed this like Siri does? Ignore this if it's a no: is this handled behind the scenes or by the developer?

When I am doing an uncached load of CoreML model on ANE, I received this warning in Xcode console Type of hiddenStates in function main's I/O contains unknown strides. Using unknown strides for MIL tensor buffers with unknown shapes is not recommended in E5ML. Please use row_alignment_in_bytes property instead. Refer to https://e5-ml.apple.com/more-info/memory-layouts.html for more information. However, the web link does not seem to be working. Where can I find more information about about this and how can I fix it?

Hi all, I'm trying to find out if/when we can expect mxfp8/mxfp4 support on Apple Silicon. I've noticed that mlx now has casting data types, but all computation is still done in bf16. Would be great to reduce power consumption with support for these lower precision data types since edge inference is already typically done at a lower precision! Thanks in advance.

Good morning all has anyone encountered the issue of Siri returning back to her original user interface on IOS-26? I’m trying to figure out the cause. I’ve sent feedback via the feedback app. Just seeing if anyone else has the same issue.

Here's the result: Very weird.

Hello Team, I'm currently working on a proof of concept using Apple's Foundation Model for a RAG-based chat system on my MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip. Environment details: macOS: 26.0 Beta Xcode: 26.0 beta 2 (17A5241o) Target platform: iPad (as the iPhone simulator does not support Foundation models) While testing, even with very small input prompts to the LLM, I intermittently encounter the following error: InferenceError::inference-Failed::Failed to run inference: Context length of 4096 was exceeded during singleExtend. Has anyone else experienced this issue? Are there known limitations or workarounds for context length handling in this setup? Any insights would be appreciated. Thank you!

: Hello, I’m seeking clarification on whether Apple provides any framework or API that enables deep integration between Siri and advanced AI assistants (such as ChatGPT), including system-level functions like voice interaction, navigation, cross-platform syncing, and operational access similar to Siri’s own capabilities. If no such option exists today, I would appreciate guidance on the recommended path or approved third-party solutions for building a unified, voice-first experience across Apple’s ecosystem. Thank you for your time and insight.

I got 3203.23 GFLOPS (FP16) on the M3 Macbook Pro and only 2833.24 GFLOPS (FP16) on the M4 Macbook Air for 4096x4096 matrix multiplications for a PyTorch MPS FP16 Benchmark. Wasn't the performance supposed to be twice as high on the M4 compared to the M3 even with the termal throtling on the Macbook Air? What went wrong?