Why Apple’s slow and steady AI bet is starting to look so smart

For years, Apple has been accused of being one of the biggest outliers in the AI ​​arms race. Skeptics say Apple’s lack of a clear AI strategy has cost it its edge, and Wall Street analysts worry the gap could start to hurt iPhone sales.

Now, the company has unveiled what it considers its biggest AI launch to date: Siri AI, which integrates new automated capabilities (powered by a partnership with Google Gemini) into the backbone of its software.

Is it enough to convince people to stop saying that Apple is “losing” the AI ​​race?

To be honest, no one really knows. But the question itself may be wrong. Perhaps a better question is: Will Apple customers actually use these features, and if they do, will it help Apple’s business?

Before we address that question, we should point out that Monday’s announcements were also accompanied by an interesting comment from Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.

“Some seem to be racing ahead, and seem to be pursuing AI for AI’s sake, without clear regard for the people – all of us – who they are ultimately meant to serve,” Federighi said during his remarks. “At Apple, our mission has always been to turn the capabilities of advanced technology into products that are useful and intuitive for everyone.”

The not-so-veiled challenge appearing here seems like a response to Apple’s “beyond AI” criticism and an attempt to acknowledge the deeply ambivalent — and, some polls suggest, increasingly negative — feelings that many consumers have about the AI ​​industry. It’s also a smart message at a time when Americans worry that artificial intelligence will take their jobs and corrupt their minds. Apple positions itself as the AI ​​company that’s actually on your side.

Judging by Monday’s demos, this mode has some substance behind it. Siri can now view information buried in your inbox or text history, surface useful information, and make helpful suggestions based on it. It can use what Apple calls on-screen awareness to provide you with context about what you’re looking at. Using Gemini, it can pull up-to-date information almost instantly from the web and deliver it directly to your device.

Siri is also designed to work seamlessly across Apple devices, giving users greater flexibility, and like other AI-powered chatbots, it stores chat histories so users can revisit previous conversations.

By building AI functionality into its ethereal assistant, Apple also has the ability to leverage the advantages of competitors whose apps can only reach users through its App Store. For these competitors, integrating Apple’s AI at the operating system level represents a significant threat to their distribution advantage.

The key word here is “potential” since this version of Siri won’t be available to consumers until later this year, as a beta.

The final verdict will have to wait, but what’s already clear is that Apple is doing everything it can to appeal to its audience – whether they end up wanting to or not. Apple is clearly a hardware company, and these updates are designed to make these devices progressively more user-friendly and convenient, keeping users glued to their devices for a little longer.

The contrast with its competitors is instructive and perhaps the most important signal in Monday’s announcements for anyone monitoring the actual direction of the AI ​​industry. Take OpenAI, which, despite shipping updates at a relentless pace, struggles to decide who to actually sell to, oscillating between consumers and businesses. Or Meta, which is pouring huge sums into AI without a clear explanation of how it relates to the company’s core advertising business.

Apple’s more measured approach is starting to look utopian by comparison — and more financially sound. For the most part, Apple didn’t need an amazing AI strategy. It hit historic iPhone sales last quarter. As questions grow about the profitability and real-world utility of AI, Apple is spending far less than its competitors — roughly $14 billion in capital expenditures planned this year, versus the cumulative $900 billion committed by other tech giants — while still raking in huge amounts of revenue. This revenue has come from the AI ​​industry itself via taxes on AI companies that use their own app store to platform their apps.

In short, Apple is spending less, making more, and has now launched a host of AI features that — for many iPhone users — will feel indistinguishable from other AI apps already available to them through the App Store. If this isn’t “winning the AI ​​race,” it might be the smartest way to run it.