Facebook<\/p>\n
Tweet<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Email Link<\/p>\n \n A version of this story appeared in CNN Business\u2019 Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n New York \n As expected, Apple<\/a> rolled out a bunch of gadget upgrades during its closely watched marketing event on Tuesday. But perhaps the most notable thing about its crisply edited, hour-and-ten-minute propaganda reel was this: Apple went really quiet when it came to artificial intelligence.\n <\/p>\n \n The theme of the day was Apple\u2019s bread and butter: hardware. It\u2019s got new AirPods that can translate bilingual conversations in real time, a watch that can monitor your blood pressure and, of course, a skinny phone. There was plenty of hype, to be sure \u2014 CEO Tim Cook\u2019s opening monologue heralded the iPhone 17 as \u201cthe biggest leap ever for iPhone.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But not once did an Apple executive grandstand about how their artificial intelligence models would upend the global economy. Heck, they barely talked about AI upending their own products. The words \u201cApple Intelligence,\u201d the company\u2019s proprietary AI, rarely came up. (I counted four passing references to it in the entire video.)\n <\/p>\n \n Also telling: No one talked about Siri, the voice assistant feature that has become a vector of Apple\u2019s AI ambitions. Not even once.\n <\/p>\n \n Long story short, Apple overhauled Siri to incorporate Apple Intelligence last year, and it was a disaster. Apple had to claw back key features, including its (very funny but very inaccurate) text message<\/a> and news app summaries. <\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n It was a rare stumble for the most brand-conscious tech company on the planet, and it\u2019s not about to risk another \u201coverpromise, underdeliver\u201d moment.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cApple (is) sidestepping the heart of the AI arms race while positioning itself as a longtime innovator on the AI hardware front,\u201d Emarketer analyst Gadjo Sevilla said in a note Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a reminder that Apple\u2019s competitive advantage remains rooted in product experience rather than raw AI as a product.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Apple has declined to give a timeline for AI-powered Siri\u2019s revival, though Bloomberg\u2019s Mark Gurman<\/a> has reported it\u2019s scheduled for spring 2026.\n <\/p>\n \n Back in June, Apple\u2019s software lead Craig Federighi assured developers at another event that the Siri upgrade \u201cneeded more time to reach our high quality bar, and we look forward to sharing more about it in the coming year.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n At the time, I wrote<\/a> that the Siri pullback was a sign that \u2014 despite the tired tech narrative about Apple falling behind its rivals<\/a> \u2014 it is actually the only big tech company in the Valley using its brain when it comes to AI. The past three months have only reaffirmed my theory.\n <\/p>\n \n Because here\u2019s the thing: Apple\u2019s homegrown AI is not good.<\/a> Its main function so far has been both underwhelming (it summarizes texts and news alerts) and unreliable (it misreads said texts and generates alarmingly inaccurate headlines, like the one where it told users that accused murderer Luigi Mangione had shot himself or that tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay \u2014 neither of which was true.)\n <\/p>\n \n But Apple\u2019s AI is lame in the same way Google\u2019s Gemini is lame (remember when it told us to eat rocks?<\/a>) and OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT is really, really <\/a>lame. Apple has not found a reliable use case for its AI in consumer products. And neither has anyone else \u2014 at least, not to the degree needed to justify the massive valuations and investment dollars they\u2019re pouring into these projects.\n <\/p>\n \n But that\u2019s not stopping the biggest names in tech from burning through hundreds of billions of dollars to try to manifest the model that will do\u2026 something. Never mind that large language models have so far proven useless at 95% of the companies that have made their workforces try to use them, researchers from MIT recently found. <\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n Apple hasn\u2019t abandoned AI, to be sure, but it is clearly doubling down on what it does best \u2013 making gadgets that we\u2019re addicted to, inside an ecosystem that is rather annoying to leave.\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n