Analysis has emerged that Apple is lagging behind major technology corporations in the artificial intelligence (AI) competition, failing to produce notable results. As a company long viewed as an icon of innovation, Apple is now said to be positioned as a follower in the generative AI era.
Mark Gurman, an IT journalist at Bloomberg, noted on the Bloomberg podcast 'The Big Take' on 18th (local time) that "Apple promised impressive AI features during last year's iPhone 16 advertising and events, but there were no actual features released." He added, "The gap between the advertising and the product is unprecedented in the modern history of Apple."
As a representative example, Gurman pointed to the Siri feature in an advertisement featuring actress Bella Ramsey. The scene depicted the AI remembering the name of a person the user met at a café; however, this feature was never released and the subsequent advertisement was removed. As a result, U.S. consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit, claiming false advertising.
Gurman said, "Apple promised AI features but has delivered nothing in reality," and pointed out that "as a result, consumers were disappointed, and the corporation's technological credibility has been undermined."
Apple has continuously presented products that redefined the market, such as the iPod, iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch, establishing itself as a technology leader. However, it has been assessed that its presence in the generative AI competition, dominated by companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Amazon, is relatively negligible.
Apple has had some AI features integrated for a long time. For instance, biometric technologies like Face ID and schedule-based notification functions are forms of AI that utilize machine learning. However, it has not demonstrated significant technological prowess in generative AI fields such as text summarization, image generation, and voice synthesis, which are recent trends.
Gurman evaluated, "The recently unveiled 'Apple Intelligence' has not lived up to expectations, and the beta version was mostly loud marketing with little substance." In fact, Apple faced controversy over errors in the news summarization feature of Apple Intelligence last year, leading to the withdrawal of some functions. When the BBC in the UK complained that suicide-related headlines were inaccurately reflected in AI summaries, this feature was removed.
Apple's AI strategy began in earnest with the recruitment of John Giannandrea, the former Google AI chief, in 2018, but it has not produced the expected results. The company integrated Siri and the AI team and attempted to refine functionalities, yet there has been no notable change since then. Recently, Apple has been exploring collaboration possibilities with OpenAI and Anthropic, aiming to introduce AI features in the next version of iOS. It is also considering integrating AI search capabilities into the Safari browser and adding Gemini, an AI developed by Google, alongside ChatGPT in Siri and writing tools.
Gurman pointed out that "Apple has fewer AI engineers than Amazon and lacks a differentiated vision," stating that "by approaching too conservatively to avoid unique technical challenges of AI, such as hallucination issues, it has missed opportunities."
Internally, there is growing concern that falling behind in the AI competition could directly affect Apple’s future hardware competitiveness. Gurman remarked, "AI is the next core technology following smartphones," adding, "to realize future devices like augmented reality glasses and humanoid robots, Apple's own AI capabilities must be supported."
He emphasized, "Just as the iPhone changed the market with multi-touch technology, future hardware will be dictated by AI," and added, "we cannot rely solely on external technologies." He continued, "To maintain competitiveness, Apple must change its organizational culture and product development processes more rapidly and boldly, as simply following along will not secure leadership in the AI era."