Apple has temporarily suspended its AI-generated news summary push notifications following a surge of backlash from journalists and news outlets regarding inaccuracies and misleading headlines.
In a message to *Mashable*, an Apple representative stated, “With the recent beta versions of iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3, Notification summaries for the News & Entertainment category will be temporarily unavailable.”
### Background on Apple Intelligence
The Apple Intelligence feature, introduced in 2024, caught public interest with the release of iOS 18.2 and was available in the UK starting Dec. 11. Aimed at providing brief news summaries via push notifications, the feature was designed for devices operating on iOS 18.1 or newer, including the latest iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models.
Nevertheless, the feature faced significant criticism after a number of notable mistakes. In December, *BBC News* accused Apple’s AI of erroneously linking a notification to their outlet, claiming that Luigi Mangione, who was arrested for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had committed suicide. This was merely one of several inaccuracies related to Apple’s AI-generated summaries, which also distorted headlines from other sources.
### Growing Backlash
Reports indicate that Apple did not respond to the BBC’s complaint until January, when the firm announced it was “working to clarify that summaries were AI-generated.” By that time, the situation had already provoked criticism from major journalistic bodies. The National Union of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders urged Apple to eliminate the feature, with the latter highlighting the “inability of AI systems to reliably produce high-quality information, even when drawing from journalistic sources.”
### Apple’s Response and Next Steps
On Thursday, an Apple spokesperson informed the *BBC* that the company is “working on enhancements and will release them in a future software update.” Meanwhile, Apple has changed the Notification Summaries feature in the Settings app to include a disclaimer indicating that the summaries “may contain errors.” Notifications outside the News and Entertainment category will continue to appear but will now be shown in italics.
As noted by *MacRumors*, this pause in the feature’s rollout suggests Apple’s recognition of the difficulties in ensuring accuracy and dependability in AI-generated content. While the company is focused on refining the system, it remains uncertain how these updates will resolve the issues highlighted by journalists and media organizations.