Apple’s AI Rollout May Be Too Slow

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 6, 6:40AM EDT

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Some think that Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) AI rollout will be too slow to drive significant demand.
If so, that will drag on the stock price.
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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will pivot hard toward software that delivers advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features to consumers of its new iPhone 16 via a new operating system, known as iOS 18. Some think that this AI rollout will be too slow and the benefits will only be incremental over time. If so, there may not be an explosion in iPhone 16 sales, which could mute the chance of a stock price rally following the launch of the new handset.

After sifting through the opinions, The Wall Street Journal published the most pessimistic one. David Vogt of UBS said in a report Wednesday that “we don’t view the AI-related offerings as compelling enough in the near term to drive significant demand.” The view gets support from the fact that the iOS 18 AI software release is in October, which could put it more than a month after the iPhone 16 launch. Will buyers of the new iPhone hold off until they see the new iOS features? If so, Apple could struggle.

Additionally, some of Apple’s primary competitors in China, and global giant Samsung, have AI features of their own. Google AI powers Samsung’s newest smartphones.

After a sell-off early in the year, which was mostly due to slow sales in China, Apple stock regained its footing against the S&P 500. The recent runup was because of the belief that the iPhone 16 will get major AI components. This was announced in June, with few details. If the pace disappoints, so will the action of the stock price.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.