Apple doesn't need better AI as much as AI needs Apple to bring its A-game

Generative AI is unleashing new possibilities into the world -- some wildly overhyped and others astonishingly capable. There's still a clear path for Apple to play a critical role.

One of my editors once told me that a cynic will always sound more rational, but that doesn't mean they're right. French statesman Francois Guizot basically said the same thing from another POV: "The world belongs to optimists. Pessimists are only spectators."

Apple's AI strategy has a lot of cynics and pessimists right now -- and they sound pretty rational based on what we've seen during the past 12 months. The long-awaited revamp of Siri never materialized. Apple's vision of your own custom AI-powered assistant with your "personal context" has been little more than a hopeful vision. And the AI features that have arrived -- such as summaries of a string of text messages -- have ...