Apple’s CEO, John Ternus, recently spoke with Wired’s Steven Levy, where he articulated and defended the company’s approach to artificial intelligence.
For some time, Apple has faced perceptions of lagging in AI development, particularly following the delayed rollout of an enhanced Siri, which became available this summer. Despite these critiques, Ternus — a veteran Apple executive who assumed the CEO role in early September — recognized diverse viewpoints but firmly stated, “I really like where we’re at.”
He further explained that Apple intends to “absolutely going to leverage AI” in upcoming products. However, Ternus clarified their approach: “We don’t want to ship AI for AI’s sake. When we’re doing it right, people won’t have to think about whether it was AI that made this happen or more traditional software. What matters is, did we build something that they really love?”
When Levy inquired about AI’s potential to fundamentally transform Apple’s ecosystem, perhaps even rendering applications obsolete through autonomous agents, Ternus responded, “That could make life really easy, I suppose, but the creation of products is a deeply human and personal thing, something that we love to do.”