We mined Apple’s partnerships, acquisitions, and earnings reports to discern how the company is positioning in AI.
Apple’s recent moves are a testament to its singular approach to AI development.
Unlike big tech peers like Google and Meta, it’s largely kept its in-house model development activity out of the public eye. With a focus on the on-device user experience — and smaller models as a result — Apple is relying on external large language models (LLMs) from partners like OpenAI to round out its generative AI suite.
Using CB Insights data, we uncovered the 3 biggest strategic priorities in Apple’s AI strategy:
- Apple is angling for an AI agent built on top of its app empire. The company aims to turbocharge Siri through its OpenAI partnership, marking its entrance into agentic AI.
- A hybrid — and invisible — approach to genAI models. Apple is betting on internally built, privacy-friendly small language models (SLMs) and chips while outsourcing the expense of LLM development. This move is designed to make AI so intuitive that it’s invisible.
- Spatial computing and augmented reality (AR) are the next frontiers. Apple’s AI strategy goes beyond its phones and computers: Apple is leveraging acquisitions — with a focus on AR, machine vision, and image recognition — to advance its spatial computing efforts.
Below, we map Apple’s recent acquisitions and partnerships across tech categories, and then break down how these relationships ladder up to the priorities above.
Want to see more research? Join a demo of the CB Insights platform.
If you’re already a customer, log in here.
