Apple’s Plan B for AI Is Actually Pretty Great
The iPhone maker doesn’t have to sink billions of dollars into its own artificial intelligence when it can team up with a partner like Google.
Playing it smart.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
When all the top tech companies seem to moving in a pack toward artificial intelligence, Apple Inc. has stood startlingly apart. Its infrastructure investments haven’t ballooned. The presence of AI in its products is, comparatively speaking, minimal. And when Mark Zuckerberg came knocking with huge paychecks for Apple’s talent, Tim Cook didn’t do all he could to retain it.
There are two ways to look at this state of affairs. One is that Apple is in disarray, its AI products don’t work because it has been caught napping on the next great tech revolution and is hemorrhaging talent as a result. Another is that Cook is exercising restraint as others in Silicon Valley lose their heads.