Apple CEO John Ternus says Apple doesn't want to ship AI for AI's sake

What Ternus said

TechCrunch reported on October 31 that Apple CEO John Ternus, in a recent interview with Wired's Steven Levy, defended the company's position in the AI landscape. Acknowledging that "everyone has an opinion," he said: "I really like where we're at."

Ternus said Apple is "absolutely going to leverage AI" in its new products, but added: "We don't want to ship AI for AI's sake. 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?"

On agents replacing apps

Levy asked whether AI could affect Apple and its ecosystem more dramatically, with agents potentially making apps unnecessary. Ternus replied: "That could make life really easy, I suppose, but the creation of products is a deeply human and personal thing, something that we love to do."

Context

Ternus is a longtime Apple executive who officially became CEO at the beginning of September. Over the past couple of years Apple has often been described as behind on AI, especially after it delayed a more powerful version of Siri, which finally launched this summer, according to TechCrunch.

The interview does not include new product announcements or timelines. It is a statement of approach: AI as an ingredient in products rather than a feature to market on its own.

Correction

An earlier version of this article misidentified Apple's CEO as Tim Cook and included quotes and analysis that did not appear in the cited reporting. It has been rewritten from the TechCrunch report.