There were several key components to emerge from Apple’s developer conference Monday as the company sought to reassure users (and investors) that it has met the existential challenge represented by AI. Aside from a serious focus on Siri AI and embedded Apple Intelligence across its varied platforms, officials also hailed a slew of performance/usability tweaks, described new child safety tools, gave macOS 27 a real name, “Golden Gate” — and offered a standing ovation in farewell to outgoing CEO Tim Cook.
Before the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), analysts seemed optimistic about the company’s plans, most of which had already leaked. Analysts didn’t expect Apple to announce anything that would transform the AI industry (it didn’t), but they did hope the company would introduce tools to keep it competitive with rivals (it did). That’s assuming all the demos at the event were live, actual feature demos, rather than faked set-ups as seen before.
Hard, hard work
Apple’s teams have evidently worked incredibly hard to come this far, and execs did introduce truly impressive new AI features focused on what customers and developers actually need. The company also played to its strengths, particularly around vision intelligence; private-by-design (large language models) LLMs; highly useful contextual awareness; and Siri AI, which works as an app and lets you carry on conversational quests securely across all your Apple devices.
As anticipated, Apple also introduced APIs developers will be able to use to provide new AI features in their apps.
Among the many individual tools most of us can expect to use this fall, are:
- Siri AI, which can help users search for information across their messages, emails, photos, and more; answer questions about virtually any topic; and take action in apps.
- Apple Passwords, which now automatically fix weak and compromised passwords with agentic AI.
- Spatial reframing, which lets users recompose a photo after it’s been taken by dragging to shift perspective, as if repositioning the camera in the original scene.
- A new Extend Tool, which expands the edges of an image to add breathing room, fix a crooked horizon, or change aspect ratio without losing the original subject.
- A Notify Me tool that monitors web pages for changes such as price drops or restocks and sends a notification when something changes.
- Photorealistic image generation, which supports the creation of high-quality photo-realistic images via a new generative model running on Private Cloud Compute.
- One-tap contextual suggestions in Messages, which surface actions such as creating reminders and notes, or finding relevant photos based on conversation context.
- And Describe a Shortcut, which means users can describe an automation they want in plain language and Shortcuts assembles the required steps automatically.
All about you, not AI
Apple did not seek to introduce AI features for their own sake; instead, it remains deeply focused on how to make its devices more useful to customers. As Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said:
“Truly helpful AI must be centered on our users’ needs, deeply integrated into the products they rely on every day, grounded in personal context, and built with privacy at every step. That is our vision for Apple Intelligence. With useful features for browsing the web, expressing creativity, editing photos, and so much more, today marks a big step forward on our journey to integrate powerful AI into the core of our platforms and make our products even more personal and useful.”
Apple is not Gemini
Apple confirmed that it worked with Google Gemini to create some of the AI models highlighted today. This led some analysts before the event to say: “For Apple, the bull case is that a working Siri reframes it as an AI winner; the bear case is that paying a rival for core intelligence caps the premium investors assign to the stock.”
Perhaps they need not worry, as what we now seem to have is a far more solid base from which to continue to develop AI services and tools that compete against others in the space. Not only that, but Apple is not using rebranded Gemini — it simply worked with Google to build its own models, as Federighi insisted. In meetings at the show, Apple explained the full extent of the work it did with Google, stressing that none of the new features should be considered white label versions of Google’s LLMs.
(Even Apple’s new search tools are based on its own search database, rather than anybody else’s. And when advanced searches are shared with Google-hosted Nvidia processors, Apple puts privacy protection in place.)
In the end, the most important consideration — for customers and developers — is that Apple seems to have succeeded in bringing dozens and dozens of powerful new on-device AI tools to its customers, giving it a firmer, more impressive peer position in the business. (It’s also true that investors were disappointed that the new AI features won’t be made available in Europe or China due to regulatory challenges, putting developers in both nations at a disadvantage.) Developers elsewhere will be able to explore Apple’s Foundation Models and its new Core AI APIs to their heart’s content.
First reactions to Apple’s news
While Apple’s stock value dipped as investors sold on the news and invested into the speculation, I do think Apple successfully turned this corner — though it will need to continue to invest heavily in AI across its platforms. The work is far from over.
“It is great to see Apple continue to pursue a vision of AI that leverages local systems, preserves privacy, and integrates with third party tools,” Ken Case, CEO of the Omni Group, told me. “A lot of our work around the Apple Foundation Models and automation, App Intents, and adopting Swift look to be fruitful investments, but it’s clear there’s more to do starting this summer.”
Creative Strategies President and Principal Analyst Carolina Milanesi explained why it matters Apple is deploying these capabilities across its ecosystem, as it gives the company a unique market position. “Where Apple Intelligence is today is different than what Claude or ChatGPT are because is it really embedded in the devices, and we need to remember that Apple sells devices,” she said.
Apple did also note that the new Siri AI will be available in beta this year. “Investors wanted it in September. That means the real version is likely early to mid 2027,” said Gene Munster at Deepwater Asset Management. “Funny that the stock actually ticked up 0.5% on the “beta later this year” update given [that] while it’s later than what they wanted, it is at least a date that investors can focus on.”
It is also true that what Apple did achieve this year at WWDC is to offer up a set of new AI features that investors already see as having significant value.
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