Apple turns 50 at a moment when it’s losing the AI race and doing something once almost unthinkable: opening Siri to rival chatbots and leaning on Google’s Gemini to close the gap. But some of the people who helped build Apple, including co-founder Steve Wozniak, former CEO John Sculley and Siri’s co-founders, suggest the company may be playing a longer game. Apple has long excelled as a late mover. On Apple’s 50th anniversary, CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos explores why AI could define its next era.<br><br>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Apple built a hardware empire in its first 50 years. The next 50 could be defined by AI. 4/1/26

TechCheck

Apple's first 50 years were defined by iconic hardware. Products have changed how people worked, communicated and lived. Very few companies have reached this 50 year mark, let alone set the gold standard across multiple eras of technology from personal computing to the smartphone. But the real question now in the age of AI is can Apple hold its dominance or will it go to someone else? What is the weather like today? Here's the forecast for today. It is that easy.

In 2011, Apple looked early. Siri was the first mainstream voice assistant debuting years before Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. But as AI became the defining technology of a generation, Apple failed to turn that early advantage into lasting leadership. They basically blew a five year lead. It was too soon. The technology wasn't ready. And so LLMs are bringing that now.

Meanwhile, Google built Gemini, OpenAI built ChatGPT, Anthropic built Claude and Siri, despite reaching more than a billion users, never evolved into the platform that its creators envisioned. That's the hardware company mindset in action. We would kill to have the technology back then that exists now. So there are no further technical barriers to any part of the Siri vision that we had from the old days.

The 20 plus years that I've been investing and analyzing this company, this is the biggest delay that they've had by orders of magnitude. Now Apple is making its biggest bet yet, turning to a longtime rival to power a revamped Siri. They've made it clear they don't want to build the brain. They want to leverage the brain.

Apple built a hardware empire in its first 50 years. The next 50 could be defined by AI. 4/1/26

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Apple built a hardware empire in its first 50 years. The next 50 could be defined by AI. 4/1/26

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.