Has Apple focused too much on AI over the past few years, or not enough? It depends on who you ask. On the one hand, the topic is faddish, inescapable, and faintly apocalyptic, and I get thoroughly depressed listening to AI buzzwords at Apple events. But on the other, can the company afford to be left behind? Yeah, I know: the food’s terrible, and such small portions.
It turns out, however, that Apple may have played this one exactly right. With the benefit of hindsight, the company’s curious mixture of enthusiastic lip service and wait-and-see standoffishness appears perfectly judged. Apple is part of the AI conversation, while remaining far less committed than its quicker-acting, more reckless rivals. It’s enjoying the benefits, without having to suffer the consequences.
Let’s start with the benefits. Following years of substandard performance and delays, the new AI-powered version of Siri has emerged as a genuinely useful chatbot. It can’t do everything ChatGPT offers quite yet, but it’s reliable for quick questions, is clued into the iPhone data like no other chatbot, and is set up for a wide range of actions. It’s private, fast, and, in typical Apple fashion, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
For the vast majority of iPhone owners, Siri AI was worth the wait. It does everything it needs to, and it should calm the negative voices clamoring about its place in the AI ecosystem. The real trick, however, is that Apple has achieved this without exposing itself to the trials and tribulations currently afflicting more AI-forward rivals.
Take OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT and perhaps the biggest name in this field. Apple recently sued it for theft of trade secrets, but this was hardly unprecedented. In 2023 alone, the company was sued three times (one, two, three) for copyright infringement by a total of 21 authors and The New York Times, while a fourth suit that year representing 16 anonymous plaintiffs alleged “an array of harms from copyright violations to wiretapping.”
In subsequent years many more lawsuits followed. These related to (among other things) stalking, murder, suicide, and two separate mass shootings (one, two). Legal challenges will likely continue for the foreseeable future, as will the keen interest of regulatory bodies.
In terms of public perception, OpenAI is divisive, to say the least. It has some intense supporters, but the company is associated in many eyes with slop videos and images, drought, unemployment, and a cavalier approach to other people’s intellectual property. Even Elon Musk, no stranger to global unpopularity, calls the CEO of the company “Scam Altman.” That gentleman doesn’t do himself any favors, to be fair.
Apple
It might seem like I’m giving OpenAI a hard time, but it’s really only one example of the backlash. Each time a company commits itself to AI, it risks financial and reputational damage. Such as Google and its racially diverse Nazis, Samsung and its confusing data consent terms, and Microsoft and its harmful responses. When not dunking hilariously on its owner, Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot is getting him in legal hot water by creating deepfake pornography and denying the Holocaust.
By contrast, Apple has got off incredibly lightly. Criticism of its AI efforts has mostly revolved around the company being slow to market. The worst scandal has probably been iOS AI notifications sometimes getting confused. But here it is, with a working AI chatbot just a couple of months away from debuting on billions of devices.. And without the substantial investments in AI infrastructure, which make it harder for rivals to step back. Why build your own unpopular data centers when you can use Google’s?
Success isn’t just about what you gain, but what it costs you. And on those terms, Apple appears to be winning AI.
