AI: John Ternus's Inaugural Battle

A critical question looms for Apple: can Tim Cook’s newly appointed successor effectively navigate the company back into a leading position within the competitive artificial intelligence landscape?

Barely a year ago, Apple drew significant attention for its notable absence of AI-centric announcements at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Fast forward ten months, and the tech giant has unveiled hardware executive John Ternus as the successor to long-serving CEO Tim Cook. Interestingly, the official announcement of his appointment makes no mention of artificial intelligence.

John Ternus, currently Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, is set to assume the CEO role on September 1st, following Cook’s remarkable fifteen-year tenure. A quarter-century veteran of Apple, Ternus marks the first CEO in approximately three decades to emerge from the hardware division. Apple’s statement credits him with spearheading hardware engineering for every iPad model, the most recent iPhone series, and AirPods. The recent announcement specifically lauded Ternus’s contributions to enhancing AirPods with superior noise cancellation and hearing health upgrades, overseeing the launch of the MacBook Neo, and boosting the durability and repairability of Apple products. Conspicuously absent from this highlight reel were any indications of his plans or relevant experience concerning the advancement of AI.

This oversight is particularly striking, given that Apple’s C-suite has been under intense scrutiny for over a year due to unfulfilled promises regarding its AI assistant offerings.

In recent years, Apple has developed a reputation for lagging behind its rivals in the AI race. Its virtual assistant, Siri, demonstrably falls short of the capabilities offered by competing products from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic, often relying on external companies for its foundational models. While Microsoft and Google have aggressively integrated agentic AI features into their operating systems, Apple has not followed suit. On occasions when Apple has attempted such integrations, like with Apple Intelligence’s notification summaries, it has faced criticism for failing to meet expectations.

However, it is important to note that merely saturating a system with AI does not guarantee success. Microsoft, for example, has garnered widespread criticism for its extensive AI integration in Windows 11, embedding Copilot into nearly every facet of the operating system, including Notepad and Snipping Tool. This strategy led to user backlash, giving rise to the pejorative term “Microslop,” and prompted a partial rollback of these changes—or at least a rebranding effort—amid user anxieties that Windows 12 would further intensify AI integration. Reportedly, some Microsoft users even migrated to the MacBook Neo, which offered a more competitive price point and, ironically, less AI-centric functionality. Therefore, if Ternus can leverage his decades of experience at Apple, including his time under Steve Jobs, to thoughtfully and elegantly advance Apple’s AI systems—aligning with the company’s signature approach to design and simplicity—he may indeed help Apple regain lost ground in a distinctive manner.

Beyond integration strategies, the fundamental issue remains Apple’s deficiency in core AI assistant features. Over the past few years, other AI laboratories have made significant strides in developing agentic AI systems, designed to perform complex, multi-step tasks on behalf of users, despite ongoing room for improvement. While Apple has a historical knack for entering product categories late but ultimately dominating them, in the realm of AI, it has thus far made promises without delivering tangible results.

Last June at WWDC, executives alluded to Apple Intelligence and showcased live translation features. However, personalization features for Siri, initially mentioned at WWDC 2024, were delayed, with executives stating a rollout would occur “over the course of the next year.” Advertisements in 2024 depicted Siri with capabilities that, nearly two years later, have yet to materialize. Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, commented at the time that Siri’s updates “needed more time to reach our high quality bar, and we look forward to sharing more about it in the coming year.” Ten months later, there is still no official update on Siri’s new features, even as WWDC 2026 rapidly approaches.

Last year, Apple’s strategy appeared to involve leveraging OpenAI’s ChatGPT to address some of Siri’s shortcomings, such as integrating ChatGPT into Apple’s Image Playground and adding visual intelligence features. Executives have consistently expressed hopes that Apple users would eventually have the option to choose other competing AI models. As of January, Apple formalized a deal with Google to utilize Gemini to power its future foundational models, an agreement potentially costing Apple $1 billion annually. However, even this partnership may have come late; during Google’s search monopoly trial last April, CEO Sundar Pichai stated that the agreement with Apple was expected to be finalized within months, targeting a rollout by the end of 2025.

The immediate question now revolves around whether the enhanced, Gemini-powered Siri will debut by WWDC 2026, or if its introduction will be postponed until Ternus officially takes the helm. During Alphabet’s February earnings call, executives largely sidestepped questions concerning the company’s AI partnerships, including the one with Apple, though Pichai did express anticipation for Google to power “the next generation of Apple foundation models based on Gemini technology.”

Ternus, who reportedly holds a reputation for refining existing Apple products rather than pioneering new ones, faces a monumental challenge. He is tasked with steering the world’s first trillion-dollar company into a new AI era, which demands not only catching up with competitors but also forging ahead in a landscape where rivals are innovating at an unprecedented pace.