Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks as Apple holds an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on its campus in Cupertino, California, U.S. Sept. 9, 2025.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Apple has one heck of a mulligan coming ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2026.
After failing on its promise to launch an artificial intelligence-supercharged version of Siri in March, Apple said it’s on track to make it happen in the new year.
The stakes are enormous.
Apple’s AI failure this year put even more pressure on it to deliver a breakthrough AI experience on the iPhone. Another whiff like that will only cement the idea that Apple is woefully behind its peers in AI and risk losing control over the next major computing platform to a rival like Google or startup like OpenAI.
Not only that, Apple must prove to investors that AI can generate meaningful sales growth after years of post-pandemic stagnation.
How Apple got here
We knew it was going to be a challenging 2025 for Apple long before the calendar turned over to the new year.
With President Donald Trump’s inauguration looming, no major tech company was more exposed to his impending tariff scheme than Apple.
And then there was the looming AI question.
Apple launched limited features for its Apple Intelligence system in the fall, but the real update, an AI-powered version of Siri that Apple advertised as a key feature in the iPhone 16, was scheduled to launch early in 2025.
Apple shares were reaching new highs in anticipation of a groundbreaking AI experience built into the iPhone.
It was all for nothing.
It took months for Apple CEO Tim Cook to play the politician and woo the president with the promise of $600 billion in U.S. investments over the next four years, culminating in a stunning moment in the Oval Office when Cook gave the president a glass trophy with a solid gold base.
The ploy worked.
Even though analysts pointed out most of Cook’s promised spending was already baked in, the president thought it was good enough. Trump dropped his demands for Apple to build iPhones on U.S. soil and gave Cook the tariff relief he wanted.
With the tariff problem out of the way, Apple shares surged. The stock is up about 35% since that show in the Oval Office.
Let’s try that again…
Now, Apple has to solve its AI problem.
Following an exodus of top execs, including AI boss John Giannandrea, Apple said it has the team in place to deliver the Siri upgrade in 2026, which could come as much as 21 months after the original announcement.
Apple needs that new Siri to be good. Not just good enough to match the capabilities of popular AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, but also good enough to convince folks with older iPhones to upgrade to a new device so they can use it.
Users need an iPhone 15 Pro, or better, to use Apple Intelligence.
That was the Apple bull case a year ago. That Apple Intelligence, especially the new version of Siri, was going to be so amazing that people would get a new iPhone just to use it. That elusive iPhone “super cycle” was on the horizon.
Nope. Perhaps next year.
For investors, it’s their best bet to see a boom in Apple shares from AI.
Unlike the $20 per month OpenAI charges to use the full version of ChatGPT, Apple doesn’t charge for Apple Intelligence. Unless Apple changes its strategy and starts charging a subscription, its only hope is to leverage AI to move new iPhones, Macs, and iPads.
It also opens up Apple to launch different kinds of hardware products, like the rumored smart glasses that could come as soon as next fall. But don’t count on an accessory like that moving the needle too much at Apple.
Apple rarely misses the way it did with AI this year, especially with something as important and as transformative as AI. Luckily for Apple, it’s still early in the AI game. And it proved this year with the iPhone 17 lineup that new hardware designs and features can lead to sales growth.
But it can only miss once. There’s not going to be another chance for a mulligan.
