Apple has changed its AI strategy due to lagging behind competitors. What does this mean for an investor

Apple has agreed to a multi—year partnership with Google. Gemini's chatbot will form the basis for future AI functions of Siri and Apple Intelligence. This deal is the most significant change in the company's strategy in the field of artificial intelligence. Despite lagging behind competitors in the AI race, Apple shows that the iPhone will remain the preferred device for accessing smart tools — users will receive an update to Siri and a new chatbot. Izvestia figured out what investors think about this and how to apply the logic of the main BigTech players in Russia.

How Apple implemented AI: failures and prospects

- When Apple bought Siri in 2010, back under Steve Jobs, and implemented it in iOS the following year, the technology was considered groundbreaking — it changed the way users interact with their devices. However, the company's focus on privacy, which was considered one of Apple's greatest strengths, turned out to be something of a weakness. Siri couldn't learn from a large amount of data and lagged behind its peers, including Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

- The pressure has increased with the advent of ChatGPT from OpenAI, which was launched at the end of 2022. This event marked the beginning of the era of generative artificial intelligence. In 2024, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence technology. This is an AI add-on within the ecosystem, not a separate model or assistant. Apple Intelligence is built into the usual functions and helps the user solve tasks faster, while the data remains on the device or on the company's servers. Apple Intelligence includes integration with ChatGPT (the system decides when to connect it), and gives Siri new features. However, the introduction of a number of functions that allow Siri to perform actions in different applications and become more personalized has been postponed.

- Against the background of these delays, at the end of 2025, Apple announced that John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, was leaving his post (he was a top manager at Google). Amar Subramanya, who was previously corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft and previously led Gemini development at Google, has been appointed in his place.

- Siri is expected to be enhanced only this year — the voice assistant is scheduled to be updated in iOS 26.4 in the spring. After that, Apple presumably intends to replace it with an artificial intelligence chatbot in iOS 27. The codename of the project is Campos. The chatbot will be integrated into the iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems. It will work both using voice control and typing mode.

- Google will help Apple with new developments — the companies signed a partnership agreement in January. The iPhone manufacturer plans to use Gemini to expand the capabilities of AI in its gadgets. This step will allow Apple to accelerate the development of AI functions, not creating the entire technology from scratch, but relying on Google models, while maintaining data processing on devices and in its own cloud system.

- Access to Gemini can provide Apple with the software base necessary to create a new product with artificial intelligence — unofficial information about the development of AI Pin (AI pin) has recently appeared. This is a small gadget based on artificial intelligence, which is attached to clothes. It will be equipped with multiple cameras, a speaker, microphones, and wireless charging. The device, which may be released in 2027, will potentially compete with the gadget from OpenAI. The company, along with former Apple chief designer Jony Ive, is currently working on its own AI device. No one knows the details yet, but it is known that it is planned to be released in 2026. Both projects are focused on a new way to interact directly with an AI assistant - through a hardware product without a screen. Perhaps this will be the beginning of an era when the user will go beyond smartphones.

How do the shares of leading tech companies behave and what do investors think?

- For most of the last three years, the technology giants included in the "Magnificent Seven" (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, which is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) have contributed to the growth of the stock market. In 2025, the Bloomberg Magnificent 7 index, which tracks the activities of a group of major tech companies, grew by 25% (thanks to Alphabet and Nvidia), overtaking the S&P 500 with an increase of 16%. It reached a record high on October 29, and then began to sink as skepticism grew on Wall Street about the payback of multibillion—dollar investments by companies in the development of artificial intelligence.

- Against the background of aggressive investments from competitors, Apple began to be perceived as an anti-AI player - against this background, its shares soared by 34% by the end of the year after falling by almost 20% in the summer due to lagging in the race. As a result, investors appreciated the lack of risks associated with investing in AI, and the high sales of the iPhone convinced them that the company's most important product was still in demand.

- In fact, Apple has its own way in the so-called AI race — the company does not create smart models like ChatGPT or Gemini, and does not compete in parameters with them, it builds a "smart layer" that will be embedded in gadgets and which these models will use. Apple doesn't want to win the AI race, it wants to be an AI controller — to control the point where artificial intelligence meets humans. The user of the device may not notice which AI model the gadget uses, because it does not interact directly with it, but with its shape.

- Apple's main competitor in the smartphone market, Samsung, has a different strategy: the company began rather early and aggressively introducing AI into its products and made smart functions visible, with which the user consciously interacts. At the beginning of 2024, Galaxy AI, a set of artificial intelligence—based tools, was introduced. Then deep integration with Gemini began. And recently there was information about the upcoming update of the Bixby voice assistant with the Perplexity search engine. For Samsung, AI is a sales accelerator and a competitive weapon. For a company that does not have such strict control of the ecosystem as Apple does and such a level of user attachment to services and devices, it is important to add value to their devices.

What strategies to choose for investments

- At the beginning of this year, the Magnificent Seven index showed an increase of only 0.5%, and the S&P 500 — by 1.8%. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that tech giants' profits will increase by about 18% this year, the slowest growth rate since 2022. However, the forecast is worse for the rest of the S&P 500 companies — 13%. The investors' strategy of buying up shares of large American technology companies has been questioned.

- A private investor is burning up in an AI hype, confusing a technological breakthrough with an investment return. The fact that technology is changing the world does not mean that the shares of companies associated with it will grow for decades. If we recall the dotcom crash in the 2000s (when Internet companies that received large investments amid the explosive development of the network, but with a weak business model, were massively liquidated), then we can say that AI repeats this pattern. The key idea here for the investor is to change the focus from "who will benefit from AI" to "who will survive AI".

- When forming an investment portfolio, it is wise to pay attention to companies that AI really enhances (reduces costs, increases customer retention or automates routine operations) and improves cash flow, rather than those that use artificial intelligence as marketing bait. AI companies will also not be the best investment. The only place in the portfolio where investments in such startups are appropriate is the periphery — a limited part of the capital, which is not a pity to lose in order to test new ideas.

What is the use of this information for a Russian investor

- In conditions of limited access to foreign markets, it is important for a domestic investor not to copy other people's tools (they now carry legal and political risks), but to use the logic of the same Apple, Google and OpenAI that form the digital economy. These companies show that money and sustainability are born not where the smartest AI is, but where there is access control, stable income, and an ecosystem that is difficult to exit. Everything else is temporary.

- In Russia, where it is impossible to freely own global assets and where there is a high level of regulatory risks, it is important to understand that betting on hype is reckless. The task is not to make money on AI, but to avoid losing because of it. Against this background, promises of better technology should not be confused with real sustainability.

- A good Russian AI case is when artificial intelligence is embedded in a business, not when a business is built around it. There are no big words, but there are savings, control, and speed. If a company functions more stably with AI, and at the same time it does not self—destruct without smart technologies, it makes investment sense. This is close to Apple's logic - the company uses AI, but if it turns out to be unavailable, it will not close because of this.

The theses contained in the text are not an investment recommendation, but the opinion of the editors.