Apple is joining the AI arms race, but I think they're better off sitting this one out.
Earlier this week, Apple Public Enemy #1 Mark Gurman reported Apple is working on its own large language models and has developed a chatbot service similar to ChatGPT, though it's unclear if the company ever intends to commercialize it.
AI is unequivocally the next tick mark innovation that's going to shake everything up in Silicon Valley. Apple would be begging for irrelevancy by not investing in it. And you can very clearly see all the ways AI is and will continue to be utilized inside Apple's software, whether that be via autocorrect or Siri smart suggestions or the Photos app correctly identifying when you've taken a picture of an orchid. Apple's creativity apps like Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro have always been severely under-appreciated as well in the entire landscape of Apple's products, and I can see loads of potential in Apple building a stronger generative AI muscle inside these apps to give creators a whole new platform to build great music and films on top of.
But the important differentiation here is that I see tremendous potential for Apple to continue equipping their software with new AI features. I don't see a clear world where Apple makes standalone AI products for two reasons.
The first is pretty simple: Siri simply sucks. It's not good. If you compare Siri today to Siri ten years ago, it's smarter today, but the way we interact with it is largely the same. 99% of requests to Siri are still for either a timer to be set, a song to be played, or a quick text to be sent. That's really still it. And in my experience, Siri still misunderstands some very simple commands or does a really poor job at understanding the context of a query. Apple was arguably the first major player in voice, and after 12 years, they don't have much of a prize to show for it. It's not clear to me that they now magically have the capability to build an industry-leading AI assistant because if they did, they probably would have done it already.
The other reason is a bit more debatable, but as each Big Tech company grabs its weapons for the next wave of tech revolutions, it seems like everyone's sort of picking their lane. Google and Microsoft have very clearly doubled-down on AI. With the launch of Threads, I would bet Meta soon retreats from its metaverse fantasies and refocuses on social media platforms. And I think Apple is still best equipped to continue making the consumer devices that power the creation and use of these new technologies. In other words, I don't think Apple should be building an AI chatbot service; I think it should continue making the best computers and personal devices for using AI chatbots. This includes their upcoming leap into AR and mixed reality with Apple Vision Pro. Staying in this lane will not only continue being wildly lucrative, but it's what Apple is best at.
If you're Tim Cook, why would you proactively go out seeking fights with Google and Microsoft in fields they're stronger in when you could just keep swimming faster in the lane you dominate?
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