Apple is pausing it’s AI-powered notification summary for news and entertainment apps after several backlash over AI-generated misinformation. The company plans to disable the feature entirely for these categories until it can be improved upon. This incident highlights the growing concerns of AI-hallucination and the risks of automated content generation.
Apple faced increasing pressure to stop the service because it faced multiple accuracy failures. The decision comes after several major news organizations, including the BBC, reported significant inaccuracies in the AI-generated summaries. In a notable incident, the system wrongly summarized to say that Luigi Mangione, who was charged with murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself. The BBC immediately contacted Apple to address this misinformation as it undermined their credibility.
This AI-misinformation not only affected the BBC. The AI system also misrepresented headlines from other major news organizations like Sky News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. In one case, it incorrectly suggested that UK MP Jess Phillips called for a new inquiry into grooming gangs, which was inaccurate. The feature “must be revoked”, the National Union of Journalists told Sky News, as the “inaccurate news summaries shared to audiences through Apple Intelligence demonstrate the feature is not fit for purpose”.
To address these issues, Apple is implementing several changes to its notification system to ensure more transparency. They will remove notification summaries from select apps and all AI-generated summaries will now appear in italics to distinguish them from regular notifications. Users will be allowed to disable summaries directly from their lock screen. They will also notify users that the summary feature is still in beta and may contain errors.
The BBC initially raised concerns in December 2024, but Apple responded in January promising to make improvements based on user feedback and clarify when a text is a summary provided by Apple Intelligence. However, this drew more criticism, with news organisations urging Apple to withdraw the feature, pointing out that AI-generated errors were contributing to misinformation and declining trust in news.
Apple has now decided to disable the feature entirely for news and entertainment apps across iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3 but plans to bring them back after improvements. “We’re pleased that Apple has listened to our concerns and is pausing the summarization feature for news,” a BBC spokesperson said.
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