At an all-hands meeting on Thursday, Apple CEO Tim Cook did his best to reassure employees about the company’s prospects in the AI market, a market in which it has so far struggled to achieve relevance. When questioned about rivals’ launches of new types of AI device, Cook insisted that Apple isn’t concerned.
“There will be new categories of products and services that are enabled through AI, and we’re extremely excited about that,” he said, as reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. “We’re excited about the opportunities that it opens for Apple.”
Apple will need to deliver more than just positive words. The company does have an AI platform, Apple Intelligence, but this was late (arriving more than a month after the “AI-ready” iPhone 16, and well over a year after Google Gemini) and far less capable than rival offerings. Things are so serious that Apple, one of the wealthiest and best-resourced companies in history, had to seek help from a rival to get things back on track.
Apple’s partnership with Google may be exactly what it needs in the short term. But the problem with growth markets is that they move on fast, and as Cook’s questioner recognised, other tech companies have released dedicated hardware products specifically designed to deliver AI features, while others are sure to follow soon.
This functionality could be built into a pair of glasses (such as Meta’s Ray-Bans), a set of earbuds, or a pin attached to the user’s clothing (such as the Humane AI, or the project Jony Ive is working on with OpenAI). AI need not be limited to the screen of a phone or a laptop.
Reports claim that Apple has been working on an AI pin, but such a product is extremely unlikely to appear before 2027, if it appears at all. And as already mentioned, the company is hindered by fundamental problems with the AI itself: it can hardly press on with plans for an AI device until that’s solved.
“AI is one of the most profound opportunities of our entire lifetime,” Cook added at the meeting. “I truly believe there is no company better positioned to let our customers use AI in profound and meaningful ways than Apple.”
He may believe it, but the rest of us might take some convincing.
