For the last few years, Apple’s AI strategy has been the butt of many a joke in the tech industry. The roll-out of so-called Apple Intelligence has seemed like a farce, most notably because of delays to the long-promised improved AI Siri. But suddenly the company’s cautiousness is looking like a smart move all along.
What feels like five minutes after Apple made headlines for becoming the world’s first $1tn, the company has now been declared the world’s first $5tn company. And the brand’s AI strategy is actually being cited as a reason.
The Guardian suggests Apple is has benefitted from investors “fleeing AI and semiconductor stocks amid a wider tech sell-off”. In other words, Apple’s cautiousness around the AI spending race is suddenly paying dividends.
”Somehow doing almost nothing with AI ended up being the AI strategy everyone wanted,” one Redditor comments on the news, while another adds, “All the crap Apple took for not going all in on AI. I do hope they do victory laps with those interviews.”
Of course, that’s not to say Apple has ignored AI entirely. In fact, this could even be a rare case of the company failing upwards. Those Siri AI delays have arguably given Apple time to watch the AI bubble start to show signs of bursting.
And in that time, Apple has shifted its focus towards on-device AI models. This could be a smart move, one that removes the need to spend billions on GPUs.
