Why Apple’s AI strategy may be the biggest focus at its developer conference next week

At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which begins on June 8, attention may be focused less on the new software updates the company traditionally introduces and more on how it plans to fix its AI strategy. Crucially, Apple may be counting on Siri, its decade-old voice assistant, for the AI comeback it desperately needs. It could mark the beginning of Apple’s push to lead in consumer AI and the new generation of devices that will emerge from it.

When Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence in 2024, it offered a “different” approach to AI than its rivals. Although Apple promised an ecosystem-wide AI strategy built around privacy, the experience fell far short of expectations. It was too underwhelming and incomplete. While some may argue that Apple arrived late to AI and that the industry has evolved faster than anyone anticipated, the company never set out to reinvent artificial intelligence. Rather, its goal was to bring AI into the devices consumers already use every day, making the technology more accessible and useful in their everyday lives.

With Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus, taking over in September and Tim Cook becoming executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors, Ternus’s foremost challenge will be to pivot to a new AI strategy, move beyond Apple’s long-embraced philosophy where necessary, and position the company as a compelling alternative to its peers by capitalising on its strengths.

The big question is: how will Apple do it and move beyond image generators, text rewriters, and notification summaries? These kinds of AI experiences have met with mixed responses from consumers, helping explain why consumer-facing AI still feels poorly optimised for the average user.

In 2024, Apple launched Apple Intelligence, which includes image generators, text rewriters, among other features. (Image: The Indian Express/ Anuj Bhatia)

“I think that the expectation that on-device AI would produce a single killer feature was always wrong,” Francisco Jeronimo, Vice President, Client Devices at International Data Corporation (IDC), told indianexpress.com. “On-device AI is an embedded layer that improves the camera, translation, search and battery management quietly, not a headline app you switch on,” he explains.

Even though Apple has maintained from day one that AI would be deeply integrated across its devices—not limited to software alone—and built with privacy at its core, it remains unclear how AI will deliver a singular experience across devices. Will AI be a product, evolve into a service, or function as an intelligent layer on top of the existing software that powers the world’s most popular smartphone, tablet, and personal computer?

Outsourcing AI from competitors

From day one, Apple’s approach to AI has differed from that of Meta, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants. While its rivals have poured billions of dollars into hyperscalers and massive data centre infrastructure, Apple has not pursued AI at the same scale. Surprisingly, the company has also limited itself from developing large foundational models of its own, instead opting to rely on Google’s Gemini AI to power some of its AI features. That includes the modernised version of Siri, which Apple is expected to showcase publicly at its developer conference next week.

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Whether this represents a missed opportunity or a smart strategic choice is open to debate. After all, Apple is also the company that deliberately chose not to build a direct rival to Google Search or Google Chrome.

The Google deal, in a way, marks a departure from Apple’s long-standing strategy of keeping iPhone, iPad, and Mac users within its ecosystem. Official partnerships have historically been rare, and when Apple did pursue them, they were often limited in scope and functionality. That could soon change, and it would not be surprising to see Apple allow users to choose from multiple AI assistants through the App Store. If one presumes, paid versions of these tools will also attract 30 per cent commissions Apple collects when it sells third-party apps. Either way, Apple stands to benefit.

The smartphone era is rapidly transitioning from apps to the era of the AI Edge Node. (Image: The Indian Express/ Anuj Bhatia)

The point is that Apple does not need to compete with established AI companies. If the company finds a partner with the best foundational model that fits its product roadmap, it will likely choose a partnership. Its collaboration with Google to help revamp Siri should be viewed through that lens rather than as a strategic failure. Just as it turned to Foxconn to manufacture its devices, it may be willing to rely on external AI providers who will be doing the heavy work.

“Apple is not necessarily behind in terms of AI features available on Apple products,” agrees Jeronimo, adding that the company is behind on frontier models and infrastructure. “Outsourcing the model layer is not necessarily a bad strategy, provided Apple owns the integration and the privacy architecture on top of it,” added Jeronimo. “Apple will focus on execution rather than a model-scale story. Apple did not build its own browser or Maps, for instance, but it made sure it provided the best experience. What they are doing with AI is a similar strategy. Apple wants to dominate the distribution, not necessarily the building infrastructure.”

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Next-gen Siri may be beginning of powering its future devices

Apple was one of the first tech companies to believe in AI long before anyone else, and Siri was once seen as a groundbreaking innovation. Sadly, it has since become something of a running joke in the tech world. It is now outdated and unreliable, and is used more often for setting timers than for its original purpose: a hands-free assistant.

Apple is finally fixing Siri after many delays, and this year’s WWDC will be where the company shows how it plans to modernise the voice assistant. The upgraded Siri, built on Google’s Gemini AI technology, is expected to offer a more modern search experience, remember users’ queries, and access data across users’ devices to deliver a more personalised experience.

Siri needs to work for Apple, not just on current devices like the iPhone; without it, the company may struggle to keep up with the next wave of AI wearables. Simply put, Siri is the missing piece for devices such as smart glasses, camera-equipped AirPods, a pendant, and even the Apple Watch, for that matter.

The next-generation Siri will power Apple’s current and future devices. (Image: The Indian Express/ Anuj Bhatia)

It all starts with Siri. More importantly, how Siri can be integrated with Apple’s first- and third-party apps on the iPhone and other current devices, and how developers can take advantage of it, may be worth watching at next week’s developer conference.

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AI remains the missing piece for Apple’s current and future devices. The company has yet to build an AI system that can run across all its devices, handle user data privately as promised, and do so in a cost-effective manner.

“I think the formula for Apple is simple. Make AI easy to use; don’t make it any more invasive than it needs to be. If Apple can integrate its AI really well into iOS and create a connected fabric across devices, it can win,” said Anshel Sag, Smartphones, Wireless, PC, 5G & XR, Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

Cupertino has long believed that heavy workloads should run on-device, powered by chips inside the iPhone or Mac, and it has been integrating AI-powered silicon for years. However, AI is evolving rapidly toward edge-node and cloud-based architectures, where interactions increasingly rely on server-side to deliver seamless functionality.

That’s where Apple’s expertise comes in: designing an AI system that leverages its hardware to optimise Apple Intelligence and enable functional AI without constant cloud connectivity. The Mac mini, for example, is already powerful enough to be used for running local AI servers. This underscores Apple’s need to continue innovating its chips so they can handle increasingly advanced on-device AI. At the same time, the company must develop AI that extends beyond today’s screen-based devices and into future screenless devices like smart glasses where AI is driven by camera awareness, contextual understanding, and more natural voice interaction.

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Industry analysts believe Apple’s success in AI will depend on how seamlessly it integrates intelligent features into everyday user experiences. (Image: The Indian Express/ Anuj Bhatia)

No matter how you look at it, hardware and AI have to come together, and Apple can’t move forward without mastering advanced visual intelligence or multimodal AI. Apple Intelligence remains limited to basic tasks, and neither Cupertino nor the industry has figured out how average consumers want to interact with AI.

“The hardware on-device hasn’t really been leveraged, and the cloud is an expensive solution. I think models need to get more accurate and smaller to enable more efficient costs and local capabilities,” added Sag.

From static apps to AI agents

One wonders what Apple thinks of AI agents, which remains unclear at the moment. An AI agent is a system that can use other software applications on behalf of users, including spreadsheets, calendars, and email. The industry is already backing AI agents and moving away from the traditional app-based model.

Apps were once the de facto way to consume content on smartphones. You installed apps from an app store, learned their interfaces, and adapted to their workflows. That model worked well when networks were slow and software was difficult to build. The App Store model, where we browse, install, and learn to use tools, has already begun to feel outdated in the AI era. Now that LLMs are the “brain” of the AI-powered new operating system, the next platform war isn’t about screens; it’s about who owns the user’s AI.

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Apple needs a new direction in AI, and an AI agent store could be what keeps the company relevant in the long run. The question is how Apple transforms apps into AI agents and how long that transition will take. The bigger question is whether consumers will want a personal AI agent at all, and how it would solve everyday problems that current apps do not. Customer service remains one of the biggest pain points users face, and whether AI agents and AI-powered chatbots can solve it remains to be seen. Only time will tell.

Apple will be unveiling new AI features and operating systems including iOS 27, iPadOS 27, MacOS 27, TVOS 27, watchOS 27 and visionOS 27 at its annual WWDC developer conference. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

Another looming question Apple needs to answer is whether the company will continue its stance on privacy or embrace AI-driven personalisation. Under Cook, Apple’s privacy-first approach to user data has long been a differentiator compared to its competitors, which enables brands to target users with ads. We are yet to see how Apple’s privacy-first approach changes or evolves under Ternus.

Industry insiders say the challenge for Apple is to think differently and come up with an approach that enables new interactions using AI and to build a killer product designed for these interactions from the ground up. If a company like Apple cannot solve this issue, it likely will not work for regular consumers.

AI is already being used by technically minded people, such as coders who use Anthropic’s Claude Code to write code. However, on the consumer side, AI is still being seen as something that’s either underutilised or lacks the use cases that normal consumers want to use. This is where Apple has to topple every tech company on the planet. It understands consumers, makes the world’s very best mobile devices, and creates seamless user experiences. It is Apple’s job to figure out how to design AI that is smart enough to make judgments for users, rather than forcing them to go to AI to get answers.