Are Apple Intelligence features still inoperable?

Question

Level 1

5 points

Are Apple Intelligence features still inoperable?

When attempting to use Apple Intelligence services on my MacBook Pro M4 with MacOS Sequoia 15.2, I am unable to summarize emails (promotional, plain text, etc.) and receive an error that Apple is "Unable to summarize this message." Websites in Safari similarly generate an error.

When I enter my OpenAI ChatGPT Plus credentials, Apple is also unable to tap that service. OpenAI customer service believes "the issue is related to the Apple OS system." They had me generate a Sysdiagnose file and provided a URL to submit it to Apple's Engineering team.

Am I missing something really simple here when trying to use the Apple Intelligence tools? Or are these prevalent problems for all Mac users?

MacBook Pro 14″

Posted on Jan 8, 2025 6:30 PM

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Answer 1

lkrupp

Level 6

17,585 points

Jan 8, 2025 7:15 PM in response to jsurdyk

"Or are these prevalent problems for all Mac users?"

Nope, all is well for everyone else. So have you properly set up and enabled Apple Intelligence?

How to get Apple Intelligence - Apple Support

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Answer 2

jsurdyk Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 9, 2025 10:39 AM in response to lkrupp

Update: Apple Support was unable to resolve the issue for me and discovered in the process that feedback on Apple AI (Use Report a Concern to share feedback about Apple Intelligence - Apple Support ) isn't working across my apps either (e.g. mail, Notes, Pages, etc.). Apple Engineering is now investigating. If I learn of a fix, I'll share the remedy here for others who may have experienced the same problem I am encountering.

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Answer 3

jsurdyk Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 9, 2025 6:41 AM in response to lkrupp

I hadn't seen much reporting on the broad failure of the Apple Intelligence features, so I was hesitant to post. My settings are below, and you can see examples of the errors I receive in Apple Mail and Apple Notes. The laptop is shutdown and restarted every day. Other than this feature being a complete fail, it works as expected in office, remote, and home locations. Nothing else seems affected.

Any ideas on a next step welcome!

SETTINGS

EMAIL

NOTES (using text from public LinkedIn post)

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Answer 4

jsurdyk Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 16, 2025 9:49 AM in response to jsurdyk

Update #2: Apple Support still unable to resolve the issue for me. I have reinstalled the MacOS without avail. Apple says it will continue investigating as it has no explanation yet for the (1) AI services not working or (2) the error reporting tools in the apps not working.

Still hoping...

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Answer 5

Jan 16, 2025 6:00 PM in response to jsurdyk

A US purchased Mac with an M chip shouldn't have an issue downloading and running Apple Intelligence. I have seen where some people with Macs resolved this by turning off Private Browsing. Do you have that enabled? Do you use a VPN on your Mac? If you do, turn it off or even delete the VPN profile completely. Personally, I wouldn't use one on my MacBook Pro.

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Answer 6

jsurdyk Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 17, 2025 11:21 AM in response to lobsterghost1

Thanks for helping me dig deeper.

I'm not using Private Browsing. I do have a Palo Alto Networks VPN. The failure of Apple AI and error reporting persist with it on or off. I can't really remove it since I need it for work: campus resources like library databases, servers at the university, and so on are not accessible without a VPN.

If VPN software is the issue, that's a significant fail. The student and instructional labor market in higher ed in the US alone is probably close to 1 million users (my university alone is likely ~ 45,000 users at the 50% Apple adoption rate). Add corporate (or cautious) people who use VPNs, and that seems like a massive oversight for a company with tremendous resources (and hardware margins) like Apple.

I hope to get another update from Apple Engineering next week. I'll report back if they discover anything!

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Answer 7

Jan 17, 2025 11:33 AM in response to jsurdyk

I don't know if the VPN is the issue, but often they cause unintended consequences and Apple Intelligence could be one of those. Given that your school requires one, I'd reach out to the system admins at your school to see if they can help you. Apple working on one side, your school tech folks working on the other and somewhere in the middle someone will be able to fix your issue.

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