Apple unveils cool gear, but questions remain on its AI strategy

Apple promoted its annual launch event on Tuesday as "awe dropping." But amid its new models of AirPods, iPhones and smart watches, what most stood out may be what Apple CEO Tim Cook didn't talk much about: artificial intelligence.

There were plenty of tweaks to some of the tech giant's most successful products. Particularly notable was a stronger focus on health and fitness capabilities, such as heart-rate sensing technology in Airpods Pro 3 and new health features in the Apple Watch — including what Apple says is the ability to detect patterns in blood vessel behaviour that can indicate hypertension.

Cook even promoted the watch by saying it "helps save so many lives," showing a promotional reel of various users who said they had averted a health crisis because of the new tech. (Though there was no hard data shared about these incidents.)

But at a time when the tech world is obsessed with AI, the relative silence on Apple's plans for its integration into its products raises questions about the company's longer-term strategy in that space.

The company already has a suite of features grouped under Apple Intelligence, initially introduced in late 2024, which it recently beefed up. That includes things like live translation (including for the new Airpods Pro 3 and some older models) — and Apple's visual intelligence feature identifies objects or places you point at with your camera and lets people use Google's search engine or ChatGPT to learn more. Users can generate unique images by describing what they want, again relying on ChatGPT to do the actual generation.

So while users can take advantage of these new features, much of it relies on other companies' programs — and that's led to murmurs about Apple lagging behind in AI advances.

Apple is "years behind" its competitors when it comes to AI, Michael Muchmore wrote recently in PCMag, but it still has the chance to become competitive in this field.

"But it needs to commit to this goal with a sense of urgency to have a chance to catch Google and Microsoft," he wrote. "Otherwise, it might not ever be able to meet consumers' expectations and excitement and thus risks missing out on the defining technology of this decade.

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In particular, as the tech sector tries to turn cool generative AI into actual products that people will find useful (and generate revenue), the latest performance of Siri — who arrived early to the digital assistance market in 2011 — has been broadly seen as, at best, disappointing. Because while Apple has said Siri has "new superpowers" and more integration with ChatGPT — the question is: why is Apple relying on ChatGPT instead of making its own version?

This comes at a time when big players in this part of the tech industry have been moving toward developing their own AI and linking that to their own hardware. Google, for instance, is in the process of integrating its Gemini AI into many devices. It announced in the spring that it's bringing Gemini to its watches, to cars with Android Auto and Google built-in and on Google TV. Gemini is coming to Google Home devices Oct. 1.

On the other side of the coin, OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, signalled in May that it intends to enter the hardware market. That's when it announced a partnership with legendary designer Jony Ive on what's widely reported to be a new piece of personal hardware. Ive was famously Apple's head of design and the brains behind the design of the iPhone and other iconic Apple products like the iPod and iMac. He left Apple in 2019.

The promise, at least, of integrating hardware and software lies in offering users a more personalized experience as the technology begins to know more about you and your routines, as you access the same AI software wherever you are throughout the day — and on different devices.

But that may also raise privacy concerns for some users.

Apple has long stressed its user privacy and has pitched Apple Intelligence to consumers as offering privacy-focused AI "for the rest of us." Users currently can opt to integrate ChatGPT with Apple Intelligence — or not.

Apple does have other options besides going forward with creating an in-house product. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple has been considering working with Google's Gemini or Anthropic's Claude. This would be a departure from the hardware and software strategy Google, OpenAI and even Meta are chasing, but hardware has long been Apple's ace in the hole.

Apple's AI dilemma comes at a pivotal moment in the tech sector. While AI has been a huge focus for investors, there's now discussion about whether we're in the midst of an AI bubble as we see signs that adoption is softening. Recent U.S. census data, for instance, suggests corporate adoption of AI in firms with more than 250 people has been declining in recent weeks.

So the rush to add AI to everything may be cooling, too.