Once the most valuable company in the world, Apple has been late to the AI party, and unfortunately for investors, the latest insight into its efforts to become a player in the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence has failed to wow investors.
Although Apple was one of the first tech firms to offer AI via its Siri assistant, its AI capabilities have plateaued, leaving it behind other major AI firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Instead of competing with LLM developers and researchers, Apple has focused on hardware, and many hoped its annual developer conference this week would be a big reveal of cutting-edge technology.
But they were left disappointed by developments that are unlikely to spur a major influx of revenue from new device sales in the near term.
Josh Gilbert, eToro Lead Analyst, said: “Markets had been longing for Apple’s AI story to take shape, and although that story started at its WWDC event, it wasn’t quite the chapter that investors were hoping for. Apple showed it has a clearer AI strategy, but it did not completely silence concerns that it is still playing catch-up. Shares fell around 2% after the event, after a 50% rally in the last 12 months.”
“The centrepiece was Siri AI, a long-awaited overhaul designed to make Apple’s voice assistant more conversational, more contextual and more useful across apps. Apple also rolled out broader AI tools across areas like the Photos app, writing assistance and visual intelligence, while its developer tools will let apps tap into Apple Intelligence and on-device models.”
Analysts also highlighted the lack of a timeline as a reason for disappointment with the strategy outlined this week.
“Investors wanted proof that Apple can deliver the agentic phone experience users increasingly expect, and the new Siri was the most important piece to nail,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.
“The demos showed progress, with more personal context and better cross-app capability, but this looked like a safe first step rather than a true wow moment. Just as importantly, Apple still stopped short of giving a firm timeline for when users will get the full experience.”