Every time I Visit the Apple Park campus, my mind shines A tour I took Months before construction was completed, when there was dust and mud on the terrazzo floors where lush vegetation is now growing. My guide was Tim CookCEO of Apple With the pride of an owner, he walked me through the $5 billion circular colossus, explaining that committing to the new campus was a “100-year decision.”
Today I return to the ring—seven years after it opened—pulsating with energy—to see Cook again. The tech world is at an inflection point. The most powerful companies will either stumble or secure their dominance for decades. We’re here to discuss Cook’s big move into this high-stakes environment: the upcoming release of Apple Intelligence, the company’s first significant offering in white-hot territory. Generative AI. Some consider it late. All year, Apple’s competitors have been buzzing, dazzling investors and dominating the news cycle With their chatbotsWhile the most valuable company in the world (as I write) was showing off an expensive, heavy augmented-reality headset. Apple has to get AI right. Corporations, after all, are less likely to boast a century than buildings.
Cook did not panic. Like his predecessor Steve Jobs, he doesn’t believe that first is best. “Classic Apple,” as he puts it, enters a cacophonous field of first-movers and, with a strong sense of innovation versus utility, unveils products that make the latest technologies relevant and even obsolete. Makes sexy. Think back How iPod Digital music revisited. It wasn’t the first MP3 player, but its compactness, ease of use, and integration with an online store thrilled people with a new way to consume their tunes.
Photo: Joe Pugliese
Cook has also argued that Apple is gearing up for the AI revolution. By 2018, he had overtaken Google’s top AI manager, John Giannandrea, for a rare extension to the company’s senior vice president rank. He then pulled the plug on a long-running smart-car program (an open secret that Apple has never publicly acknowledged) and marshaled the company’s machine-learning talent to build AI into its software products. done
In June, Apple announced the results: a layer of AI for its entire product line. Cook also struck a deal with OpenAI, the gold standard in chatbots, to give his users access to ChatGPT. I got a few demos of what they were planning to reveal, including a tool for creating custom emojis with verbal prompts and an easy-to-use AI picture generator called Image Playground. (I hadn’t yet tested the revival of Siri, Apple’s weak AI agent.)
Perhaps what sets Apple’s AI apart the most — at least according to Apple — is its focus on privacy, which is a hallmark of the Cook regime. AI tools, which are rolling out via software updates on the latest iPhones and relatively recent Macs, will mostly run on the device itself—you don’t send your data to the cloud. Computation for more complex AI tasks, Cook assured, takes place in secure areas of Apple’s data centers.
Another thing I’m reminded of on my return to the ring is how adept Cook is at illustrating the consequences of his big decisions, from the Apple Watch to his bets on custom silicon chips, which spurred Apple phones and laptops. Released innovations that (And not to mention the decisions that didn’t pan out, like that multibillion-dollar smart-car project.) When he walks into the conference room where we’re meeting, I know Cook would have shown respectable manners throughout his Alabama. Hoy, will be cautiously sincere. Childish, calmly hyperbolizing the virtues of Apple’s products and fending off criticisms of his very powerful company. (And when asked to comment on the election results that followed our conversation, he decided to keep his thoughts to himself.) Steve Jobs would descend on a reporter like rain in Buenaventura, aggressively pitching his message. ; Cook envelopes his interlocutors in a gentle mist and confides in startling assessments of his company’s efforts.
The final assessment, of course, will come from the users. But if 40 years of covering Apple has taught me anything, it’s this: Should this first iteration of AI go down, an unrepentant cook hailing a new version in a pretaped future keynote will appear “The best Apple Intelligence we’ve ever. Created.” Despite all the pressure, Tim Cook never lets you see him sweat.
