Machine Heart

May 30, 2026 · Artificial Intelligence

How Apple’s AI‑Powered PICO Codec Cuts Image Files to One‑Third While Preserving Quality

Apple’s new PICO perceptual image codec, detailed in the “What Matters in Practical Learned Image Compression” paper, combines a one‑shot context model, TextFidelityLoss, and TilingArtifactLoss to achieve up to 70%‑80% smaller files than AV1, VVC, JPEG AI, and other learned codecs while running in real‑time on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, though it still lags on traditional metrics like PSNR.