Apple's AI strategy and the "AI Bubble": Is the iPhone giant catching up?
Apple has so far been crawling in terms of AI hype. Will this remain the case in 2026? Market development will be interesting. An analysis.
Apple Intelligence: So far considered a loser – but perhaps not for long?
(Image: T. Schneider/Shutterstock.com)
Apple is generally considered a company of innovation, for example with the iPhone (from 2007), the iPod (from 2001), or even (from 1984) the Mac. In fact, none of these products were the first of their kind: before the iPhone, there were various smartphones; before the iPod, various MP3 players; and before the Mac, various home computers. It has repeatedly been shown that Apple is good at waiting for others to introduce new product categories and then entering them with significant improvements and greater ease of use. But does this also apply to the field of artificial intelligence, in which Apple, at least according to the assessment of most observers, is significantly behind?
Much hype, no profits
While the sector is generally considered to be divided – OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft plus some Perplexity and Chinese companies like DeepSeek are considered market leaders – this is by no means the case in practice. The major AI companies are still in the midst of an investment phase; they are growing strongly but making no profits at all. In addition, financial experts have been warning for months about a possible bursting of the AI bubble, as it largely consists of hype and circular business (OpenAI buys chips from Nvidia, Nvidia invests in startups co-funded by OpenAI, data center providers are sometimes co-financed directly by technology suppliers). Nor is there any sign of the famous “superintelligence” or even general artificial intelligence (AGI) yet; in some cases, the models are even degenerating again.
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Meanwhile, surprisingly little is happening at Apple. While the company is gradually developing its own Apple Intelligence and integrating more OpenAI services here and there, technically the company is significantly behind the industry average. The smarter, context-sensitive Siri has also not yet been released. One might recall: it was already announced in the summer of 2024. Nevertheless, there are several opportunities for Apple. Because the company has not made the mistakes of other companies – including the wild investment in AI. However, it also did not experience the stock market hype that competitors were able to capitalize on.
First contrary voices
In Silicon Valley, first contrary voices, such as the widely read service The Information, are now arguing that if the AI bubble were to partially burst, Apple could act “opportunistically.” This means: If the enormously high market prices for AI companies fall, Apple could, thanks to its large cash reserves, acquire them and do what the company is actually very good at: integrating external technology. So far, this has only been partially successful in the AI sector. Although companies from the machine learning sector and other related startups have been acquired and integrated over the years, the generative AI trend has – at least from an external perspective – been slept through.
However, it is often forgotten that the AI functions integrated into macOS or iOS are indeed used, be it the – now better functioning – summaries, the text generators, or even the much-mocked Genmoji. Even the visual intelligence on the iPhone, implemented with Google and OpenAI, now works well. If the long-awaited better Siri were finally to arrive this spring, Apple could turn its previous disadvantages into advantages. Before that, however, there is – admittedly – a huge question mark.
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