In a global all-hands meeting hosted from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, CEO Tim Cook seemed to admit to what analysts and Apple enthusiasts around the world had been raising concerns about: that Apple has fallen behind competitors in the AI race. And Cook promised employees that the company will be doing everything to catch up.
“Apple must do this. Apple will do this. This is sort of ours to grab,” Cook said, according to Bloomberg, and called the AI revolution “as big or bigger” than the internet.
The meeting took place a day after Apple reported better than expected revenue in its quarterly earnings report, and that sent the company’s stock soaring. The report came in a week already marked by great tech earnings results, partially driven by AI. But unlike Meta and Microsoft, Apple’s rise in revenue was attributable to iPhone sales and not necessarily a strength in AI.
In the earnings call following the report, Cook told investors that Apple was planning to “significantly” increase its investments in AI and was open to acquisitions to do so. He also said that the company is actively “reallocating a fair number of people to focus on AI features.”
Cook echoed those sentiments in Friday’s meeting, saying that the company will be making the necessary investments in AI to catch up to the moment.
The AI-enhanced Siri is back and allegedly better than ever
Apple has been working on integrating advanced AI into its product lineup for the past year or so under its Apple Intelligence initiative, which the company unveiled at the June 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference. The move was met by celebration and criticism even then: Apple’s big bet on AI was coming a good year or so after competitors like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta scaled up their offerings.
Even so, the company’s progress on Apple Intelligence has been slow. Apple was supposed to unveil an AI-enhanced Siri earlier this year, and even released ads for the new iPhone with AI-enhanced Siri capabilities, but the Cupertino giant pushed that reveal back at the last minute, reportedly to next spring, though nothing is officially confirmed.
The switch-up caused major backlash from investors and customers, two major lawsuits, and a complete corporate overhaul.
Cook said on Friday that 12,000 workers were hired in the last year, with 40% of them joining research and development teams.
... continue reading