The most valuable company in the world is no longer Apple. Microsoft now holds this title, driven by significant investments in AI and the integration of AI into its product lineup. The company supplying the hardware central to pushing AI capabilities to new heights is Nvidia, which is now the third most valuable company in the world.
Apple appears slower in incorporating AI into its products. But Apple is rarely first-to-market with new products or major capabilities. Before iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple Music, or Apple Maps, other companies pioneered their version of these products well before Apple. However, the company’s core competency has been its ability to combine its new products with seamless capability and user friendliness found lacking in many competing first-to-market products.
Could this strategy of waiting to understand the market before launching better product solutions be what Apple CEO Tim Cook has up his sleeve regarding the integration of AI? I think so!
Cook has repeatedly told investors that Apple has been investing in AI for many years, according to the Wall Street Journal. As was reported last week by the WSJ, Apple has “held discussions with Google and other AI providers such as OpenAI about using their AI technology to power mobile features. MacRumors has reported that Apple also is working on an “Apple GPT” AI product. According to additional reports, Apple is working to incorporate AI into Siri as well as within various Apple apps that will function across customers’ Apple devices.
During a Bloomberg interview in 2017 about Apple’s now-cancelled autonomous car efforts, Cook called autonomous systems a “core technology” for Apple, describing it as “the most difficult AI project to work on.” The development of self-driving capability requires expertise in both AI and machine learning. Cook has recently said that both technologies are “integral to virtually every product” that Apple creates.
Thus, maybe the situation for Apple is not that the company is behind in deploying AI. It’s more likely that the company is executing a familiar strategy of integrating AI seamlessly into its products in its traditional mode of being a fast-follower.
Disclosure: I own Apple shares.
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