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Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during the 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, June 22, 2020.

Brooks Kraft | Apple, Inc. | via Reuters

Apple released an AI-powered journal app for iPhones on Monday as part of its iOS 17.2 update.

The Journal app, which was first announced back in June, uses Apple’s Siri to intelligently suggest topics to journal about. It might, for example, prompt you to write about music you were listening to, or document appointments you had that day and workouts you completed.

The Journal app is one example of how Apple continues to invest in new iPhone features on a yearly basis to protect its iPhone franchise from competition from Google’s Android and other phone makers.

The iPhone is still the most important product Apple makes, accounting for $205 billion in sales in its fiscal 2023, or about 52% of the company’s overall sales. The more that Apple adds features that are used on a daily basis — like its credit card, or its app store, or its iMessage service — the harder it is for most users to switch to a competing phone brand or operating system.

The Journal app also highlights Apple’s approach to AI. Apple’s artificial intelligence software, like what’s powering the Journal app, runs on the device itself, not on a server in the cloud, which has privacy advantages over Google’s and Microsoft’s internet-based approach, especially for sensitive information like health data or travel plans. Apple also doesn’t highlight AI as a key feature in its marketing — it prefers the more academic phrase “machine learning.”

How the Journal app works

Apple’s new Journal app uses machine learning to detect important events users might want to write about.

Screenshot/CNBC

Apple’s Journal app is simple. I’ve been testing it on a beta version of iOS for a month. When you open the app up — you can lock its contents with Apple’s FaceID — you’re brought to a screen with a list of your entries and a single “+” button.

Pressing the plus button lets you start a new entry. At first, it looks like a standard text entry box, like in Apple’s Notes. You can type in some thoughts, add a photo, photos you’ve taken, an audio recording, or drop in a Apple Maps location of where you’ve been. The app automatically timestamps the post.

After you’ve added several entries, the front page of the app fills up with your previous entries and you can browse and edit old posts. You can filter your old entries by those that include a photo, or an activity, or those that are tagged with a certain place. Journal entries aren’t published anywhere, just stored inside your individual Journal app.

Where the machine learning magic appears is under the magic wand icon, or the “moments menu.” When you tap the magic wand icon, it suggests things to write about based on what it knows from your phone, such as the music you were listening to or where you were.

For example, when I pressed the moments tab on Monday, it suggested I write about a recent vacation — bringing up a map of where I was, hikes I did while I was on the trip, music I listened to, and photos I took when I was there. For one entry, I simply recorded an audio file of the waves crashing, so I could return to the moment later. (However, it didn’t realize that I had already fully documented that vacation inside the Journal app.)

The Journal app’s push notifications can also prompt the user. It often sends a push notification when it detects that you’ve done an activity that you might want to reflect on. For example, I recently had to rush to catch a ferry. My watch noted a walking workout, and I was listening to music at the time. Journaling workouts could be very useful for people who are training for marathons or other athletic achievements.

The Journal app also sent me notifications asking whether I wanted to write about the experience. Some days, notifications sent by the app simply asks you to reflect on your day. Apple also includes several prompts designed to spur reflection: “Make an audio recording of your surroundings. Write about what you notice.”

The app can also be social, suggesting to journal about activities with others when it detects contacts nearby.

Apple’s Journal app is basic right now. Nothing it does besides suggestions couldn’t be done in an old-fashioned paper journal, or even a page inside Apple’s Notes app. But the suggestions and integration with Apple’s other services set it apart from more low-tech approaches, and highlight how Apple’s integration of hardware and software means that it can learn what’s important in your life without collecting your data on its servers.

Apple is even making its machine learning model that guesses what might be important to the user available to other apps through a programming interface, meaning that other apps could benefit from Apple’s AI.

Apple needs to continue to improve the Journal app in order to find a place in most people’s everyday routines. It would be better if it could automatically fill out more of an entry, especially ones based on photos or other activities. For now, there’s no export function, which would enable the Journal app to become a more useful place to collect thoughts and ideas that could one day be published.

How to get the Journal app on your iPhone.

The journal app is available in iOS 17.2, which can be downloaded on modern iPhones now. Here’s how to get it:

  • Open Settings.
  • Tap General
  • Choose Software Update.

You may notice some other new features in iOS 17.2. The update also includes the ability to change the default alert sound, sticker reactions in iMessage, and a machine learning feature that blurs photos and other content sent to you that may include nudity.

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Here are 4 major moments that drove the stock market last week

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December 13, 2025

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Here are 4 major moments that drove the stock market last week

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Oracle says there have been ‘no delays’ in OpenAI arrangement after stock slide

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December 12, 2025

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Oracle says there have been 'no delays' in OpenAI arrangement after stock slide

Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk appears on a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, on Sept. 23, 2025.

Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Oracle on Friday pushed back against a report that said the company will complete data centers for OpenAI, one of its major customers, in 2028, rather than 2027.

The delay is due to a shortage of labor and materials, according to the Friday report from Bloomberg, which cited unnamed people. Oracle shares fell to a session low of $185.98, down 6.5% from Thursday’s close.

“Site selection and delivery timelines were established in close coordination with OpenAI following execution of the agreement and were jointly agreed,” an Oracle spokesperson said in an email to CNBC. “There have been no delays to any sites required to meet our contractual commitments, and all milestones remain on track.”

The Oracle spokesperson did not specify a timeline for turning on cloud computing infrastructure for OpenAI. In September, OpenAI said it had a partnership with Oracle worth more than $300 billion over the next five years.

“We have a good relationship with OpenAI,” Clay Magouyrk, one of Oracle’s two newly appointed CEOs, said at an October analyst meeting.

Doing business with OpenAI is relatively new to 48-year-old Oracle. Historically, Oracle grew through sales of its database software and business applications. Its cloud infrastructure business now contributes over one-fourth of revenue, although Oracle remains a smaller hyperscaler than Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

OpenAI has also made commitments to other companies as it looks to meet expected capacity needs.

In September, Nvidia said it had signed a letter of intent with OpenAI to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia equipment for the San Francisco artificial intelligence startup. The first phase of that project is expected in the second half of 2026.

Nvidia and OpenAI said in a September statement that they “look forward to finalizing the details of this new phase of strategic partnership in the coming weeks.”

But no announcement has come yet.

In a November filing, Nvidia said “there is no assurance that we will enter into definitive agreements with respect to the OpenAI opportunity.”

OpenAI has historically relied on Nvidia graphics processing units to operate ChatGPT and other products, and now it’s also looking at designing custom chips in a collaboration with Broadcom.

On Thursday, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan laid out a timeline for the OpenAI work, which was announced in October. Broadcom and OpenAI said they had signed a term sheet.

“It’s more like 2027, 2028, 2029, 10 gigawatts, that was the OpenAI discussion,” Tan said on Broadcom’s earnings call. “And that’s, I call it, an agreement, an alignment of where we’re headed with respect to a very respected and valued customer, OpenAI. But we do not expect much in 2026.”

OpenAI declined to comment.

WATCH: Oracle says there have been ‘no delays’ in OpenAI arrangement after stock slide

Oracle says there have been 'no delays' in OpenAI arrangement after stock slide

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AI order from Trump might be ‘illegal,’ Democrats and consumer advocacy groups claim

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December 12, 2025

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AI order from Trump might be ‘illegal,’ Democrats and consumer advocacy groups claim

“This is the wrong approach — and most likely illegal,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in a post on X Thursday.

“We need a strong federal safety standard, but we should not remove the few protections Americans currently have from the downsides of AI,” Klobuchar said.

Trump’s executive order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to create a task force to challenge state laws regulating AI.

The Commerce Department was also directed to identify “onerous” state regulations aimed at AI.

The order is a win for tech companies such as OpenAI and Google and the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which have all lobbied against state regulations they view as burdensome. 

It follows a push by some Republicans in Congress to impose a moratorium on state AI laws. A recent plan to tack on that moratorium to the National Defense Authorization Act was scuttled.

Collin McCune, head of government affairs at Andreessen Horowitz, celebrated Trump’s order, calling it “an important first step” to boost American competition and innovation. But McCune urged Congress to codify a national AI framework.

“States have an important role in addressing harms and protecting people, but they can’t provide the long-term clarity or national direction that only Congress can deliver,” McCune said in a statement.

Sriram Krishnan, a White House AI advisor and former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, during an interview Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said that Trump is was looking to partner with Congress to pass such legislation.

“The White House is now taking a firm stance where we want to push back on ‘doomer’ laws that exist in a bunch of states around the country,” Krishnan said.

He also said that the goal of the executive order is to give the White House tools to go after state laws that it believes make America less competitive, such as recently passed legislation in Democratic-led states like California and Colorado.

The White House will not use the executive order to target state laws that protect the safety of children, Krishnan said.

Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, called Trump’s order “mostly bluster” and said the president “cannot unilaterally preempt state law.”

“We expect the EO to be challenged in court and defeated,” Weissman said in a statement. “In the meantime, states should continue their efforts to protect their residents from the mounting dangers of unregulated AI.”

Weissman said about the order, “This reward to Big Tech is a disgraceful invitation to reckless behavior
by the world’s largest corporations and a complete override of the federalist principles that Trump and MAGA claim to venerate.”

In the short term, the order could affect a handful of states that have already passed legislation targeting AI. The order says that states whose laws are considered onerous could lose federal funding.

One Colorado law, set to take effect in June, will require AI developers to protect consumers from reasonably foreseeable risks of algorithmic discrimination.

Some say Trump’s order will have no real impact on that law or other state regulations.

“I’m pretty much ignoring it, because an executive order cannot tell a state what to do,” said Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, a Democrat who co-sponsored the anti-discrimination law.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a law that, starting in January, will require major AI companies to publicly disclose their safety protocols. 

That law’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, said that Trump’s stated goal of having the United States dominate the AI sector is undercut by his recent moves. 

“Of course, he just authorized chip sales to China & Saudi Arabia: the exact opposite of ensuring U.S. dominance,” Wiener wrote in an X post on Thursday night. The Bay Area Democrat is seeking to succeed Speaker-emerita Nancy Pelosi in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Trump on Monday said he will Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chips to “approved customers” in China, provided that U.S. gets a 25% cut of revenues.

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