Apple’s AI Challenge Moves to Center Stage as Ternus Era Begins

Apple’s earnings call was, on the surface, a story about iPhone momentum and Mac demand. iPhone revenue rose 22% year over year, Mac revenue rose 6%, and executives repeatedly pointed to supply constraints as evidence that demand was outpacing what Apple could deliver.

But underneath the product numbers was a more complicated issue: Apple is still working through where artificial intelligence (AI), especially agentic AI, fits inside a company built around tightly controlled hardware, software and services.

CEO Tim Cook continued to frame Apple Intelligence as something woven into the company’s devices rather than sold as a separate AI product. He said the company’s advantage is that Apple Intelligence is “fast, personal, and private,” built on Apple silicon, on-device processing and years of work around the neural engine. He also said that same foundation is drawing developers and researchers to Apple products as platforms for “building and running agentic AI,” citing performance, efficiency and on-device capabilities.

The analyst Q&A made clear that Wall Street is looking for more. Asked how Apple sees the rise of agents and whether agentic AI could change the smartphone itself, Cook declined to discuss the product roadmap. Instead, he returned to iPhone demand, saying Apple was “thrilled” with 22% growth in the quarter and the strongest iPhone cycle in the company’s history.

That answer showed the tension in Apple’s AI story. The company is positioning its devices as the place where agentic AI can run, but it is not yet explaining how agents might reshape the user interface, the phone, or Apple’s own business model.

Cook Clarifies Spending

Cook did offer a clearer answer on spending. Asked where Apple would invest more heavily in an agentic AI world, he said the company is “clearly investing more” and pointed to operating expenses, especially research and development.

The financials support that statement. R&D expense rose to $11.4 billion in the March quarter from $8.6 billion a year earlier, while total operating expenses rose to $18.9 billion from $15.3 billion. For the first six months, R&D rose to $22.3 billion from $16.8 billion.

Capital expenditure tells a more nuanced story. Payments for acquisition of property, plant and equipment fell to $4.3 billion for the first six months from $6 billion a year earlier, suggesting Apple’s AI investment is showing up more clearly in R&D and product development than in a large near-term infrastructure buildout.

Services remains the other pillar of the story. Apple said services revenue reached an all-time high of $31 billion, up 16% year over year. Services include businesses such as Apple TV, advertising, App Store-related activity, payments features such as Tap to Pay, enterprise services and other digital offerings tied to Apple’s installed base of more than 2.5 billion active devices.

CFO Kevan Parekh said both transacting and paid accounts reached new highs, and that Apple continues to expand the breadth of services from Tap to Pay, now available in more than 50 markets, to enterprise support.

The call also marked the beginning of a leadership transition. Cook said he will become executive chairman on Sept. 1 and called incoming CEO John Ternus “a brilliant engineer, a deep thinker, a person of remarkable character, and a born leader.” Ternus used his brief remarks to signal continuity rather than reinvention.

“As you know, one of the hallmarks of Tim’s tenure has been a deep thoughtfulness, deliberateness, and discipline when it comes to the financial decision making of the company,” Ternus said. “And I want you to know that is something Kevan and I intend to continue.” He added that this is “the most exciting time” in his 25-year Apple career to be building products and services.

The top line gave Ternus a strong handoff. Apple reported $111.2 billion in quarterly revenue, up 17% year over year, net income of $29.6 billion and diluted earnings per share of $2.01. Products revenue was $80.2 billion, services revenue was $31 billion, and Apple’s gross margin was $54.8 billion.

The numbers were strong. The strategic issue now is whether Apple can turn its AI foundation into a more visible agentic AI strategy without giving up the product discipline that built the company.