Apple's New CEO Defends Its Slow-and-Steady AI Strategy

Apple's new CEO has heard the criticism that his company is lagging behind in AI, and he's not particularly bothered by it.

In a recent interview with Wired's Steven Levy, John Ternus — the longtime Apple executive who officially became CEO at the start of September — pushed back on the narrative that Apple has fallen behind rivals like Google and OpenAI in the AI race. "Everyone has an opinion," he said, "but I really like where we're at."

That's a notable thing to say for a company that spent the last two years absorbing criticism for exactly this. Apple delayed a more capable version of Siri multiple times before it finally shipped this summer, and the company has largely stayed out of the generative AI arms race that's defined the industry since ChatGPT's debut. Competitors have raced to bolt chatbots and AI agents onto everything; Apple has moved deliberately, often to the frustration of reviewers and, reportedly, some of its own engineers.

Ternus framed that caution as a feature, not a bug. "We don't want to ship AI for AI's sake," he told Levy. "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?"

That's a philosophy that's been part of Apple's identity for decades, applied now to its most contested product category. Apple's pitch has always been that the technology should recede into the background, that the user shouldn't need to know or care what's powering a feature as long as it works. Ternus is arguing AI should get the same treatment: invisible when it's working, not a headline feature bolted on to prove the company is keeping up.

He did confirm Apple is "absolutely going to leverage AI" in upcoming products, so the company isn't stepping back from the technology. The distinction he's drawing is between AI as a visible selling point and AI as plumbing — something that makes a product better without demanding credit for it.

Levy also pushed Ternus on a bigger question: what happens if AI agents get good enough to make apps themselves unnecessary? That's a real threat to Apple's business, which has built an entire ecosystem — and a substantial revenue stream — around the App Store and the idea that people download and use discrete apps. If an AI agent can just do the task directly, why would anyone need an app at all?

Ternus didn't dismiss the idea, but he didn't sound worried about it either. "That could make life really easy, I suppose," he said, "but the creation of products is a deeply human and personal thing, something that we love to do." It's a response that sidesteps the business-model implications in favor of a values statement: Apple sees building products as a creative act worth preserving, agents or no agents.

Whether that holds up as AI agents get more capable is an open question the interview doesn't really answer. But it's a clear signal of how Apple's new CEO wants to position the company heading into whatever comes next — not as the fastest mover, but as the one making sure the AI actually earns its place in the product before it ships.