Cook's last WWDC submission! Apple announces the largest AI upgrade plan to date. Why is the capital market not buying in?

According to Zhitong Finance APP, on Monday, Apple's (AAPL.US) 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) came to a close. Over the past year, the delays in Apple Intelligence features, the postponed upgrade of Siri AI, and the slow progress of its artificial intelligence strategy have raised increasing doubts in the market about Apple's competitiveness in the AI era. Meanwhile, this is also the last WWDC hosted by Cook during his tenure as CEO of Apple. In September, Apple's hardware chief, Turner, will officially take over the CEO position.

Therefore, this WWDC is not only a product launch event but is also seen as an important moment for Apple to showcase its AI strategy to investors and developers.

From the content released, Apple introduced a fully upgraded Siri AI, a new generation of Apple Intelligence model, the brand new macOS 27 "Golden Gate," an upgraded Spotlight search, and a series of AI-driven new features. Unlike the market's expectations for a "super AI product," Apple did not launch an independent chatbot similar to ChatGPT but chose to fully integrate its artificial intelligence capabilities into its operating system and ecosystem.

However, the capital market's reaction has been relatively cautious. During the conference, Apple's stock price turned from rising to falling, reflecting investors' wait-and-see attitude towards the long-term effects of Apple's AI strategy. By the close on Monday, the company's stock price fell 1.89%, closing at $301.54.

Siri AI Officially Debuts, Apple Completes the Most Critical Part of Its AI Strategy

The biggest highlight of this WWDC is undoubtedly the new version of Siri AI.

Craig Federighi, Apple's head of software engineering, announced that the company officially launched the "new Siri powered by Apple Intelligence," naming it "Siri AI." Compared to traditional voice assistants, the new Siri has stronger natural language understanding capabilities, contextual memory capabilities, and the ability to execute tasks across applications.

The examples demonstrated by Apple show that users can directly use Siri to find previously received address information, search for photos taken at specific locations, organize email content, and even complete continuous tasks across multiple applications without frequently switching between apps.

For example, users can have Siri directly find and share photos taken during a trip without opening the Photos app; they can also use voice commands to search for specific information in emails or complete complex operations based on personal history.

At the same time, Siri will also be available as a standalone application on Mac and iPad platforms, supporting historical conversation record queries and featuring a new voice engine with higher accuracy in voice recognition.

In fact, this upgrade was originally planned for release last year.

During the 2024 WWDC, Apple first introduced Apple Intelligence and promised to create a more natural and personalized Siri. However, due to development progress not meeting expectations, the company subsequently announced a delay in related features and faced a collective lawsuit from consumers. Earlier this year, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to reach a settlement Apple Intelligence Expands Fully, AI Begins to Integrate into the Entire Apple Ecosystem

In addition to Siri AI, Apple Intelligence remains the core theme of this year's WWDC.

Cook stated that Apple will continue to build its future product ecosystem around Apple Intelligence, emphasizing that privacy protection, local computing, and system-level integration will become important differentiating advantages of Apple's AI strategy.

At this conference, Apple released the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, which can simultaneously understand text, voice, and image content, and integrate more deeply into iOS 27, iPadOS, and macOS 27.

On the search front, Apple has restructured the underlying architecture of Spotlight, gradually evolving it from a traditional search tool into a system-level intelligent assistant.

The Safari browser has added features such as webpage content summarization, webpage change monitoring, and intelligent tab management; the Passwords app has introduced an AI agent that can automatically identify and fix passwords with security risks.

The Photos app has gained more powerful generative AI editing capabilities, supporting content expansion, intelligent photo retouching, and image reconstruction.

Apple also launched a series of new features, including child safety management, application access control, and website approval mechanisms.

Meanwhile, Apple released macOS 27 "Golden Gate" and iOS 27. Notably, iOS 27 continues to support the iPhone 11 series devices, seen as an important measure for Apple to extend device lifecycles and strengthen ecosystem stickiness.

Overall, Apple has not launched AI as an independent product but is attempting to make AI gradually become a foundational capability of the entire Apple ecosystem.

Google (GOOG.US, GOOGL.US) Becomes a Behind-the-Scenes Partner, Apple Chooses an Open Model Approach

Another highly anticipated piece of information from this WWDC is Apple's first public confirmation of deep cooperation with Google (GOOGL.US) in the AI field.

Craig Federighi stated at the conference: "We have collaborated with Google to create the next generation of Apple Intelligence models."

This statement confirms previous market speculation about Gemini's involvement in the construction of Apple Intelligence.

Earlier this year, there were reports that Apple had reached a partnership with Google, hoping to enhance its AI capabilities with Gemini. This WWDC further shows that Apple has not chosen to engage in a direct arms race of large models with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, but has adopted a more pragmatic strategy.

For Apple, the most important question in the future may no longer be "who has the strongest model," but rather "who controls the user entry point." As long as users still access AI through iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Siri, Apple continues to hold the most core position in the ecosystem After Computex, Apple Faces Three Structural Challenges

In fact, the significance of this year's WWDC largely stems from the industry signals released at last week's Taipei International Computer Show (Computex).

From an industry trend perspective, three profound changes are occurring in the AI sector.

First, AI computing power is accelerating its concentration in the cloud.

Whether it's NVIDIA (NVDA.US), AMD (AMD.US), or major cloud service providers, current AI investment focuses on data centers and cloud infrastructure construction. This means that more and more AI capabilities are beginning to move away from terminal devices and migrate to the cloud.

Second, AI PCs are redefining the terminal entry point.

Microsoft (MSFT.US), Lenovo, ASUS, and Dell have all vigorously promoted the AI PC concept during Computex. AI is gradually upgrading from application-level capabilities to operating system capabilities, reshaping the way users interact.

Third, the AI ecosystem is developing towards a decentralized pattern.

OpenAI has ChatGPT, Google has Gemini, Anthropic has Claude, and xAI has Grok. In the future, users are likely to switch freely between multiple AI systems, rather than relying on a single platform.

These changes are challenging the ecological advantages that Apple has built over the past decade.

WWDC Releases Three Response Signals

In the face of these challenges, what the market is truly concerned about is not what new features Siri has added, but whether Apple has established a "counter-structure" to respond to the AI era.

First Response: Bringing AI Back to the System-Level Entry

In the mobile internet era, Apple controlled the entry point for users to access the digital world. However, in the AI era, more and more users are starting to directly use ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to obtain information and process tasks.

If in the future users first open an AI assistant instead of an application, then the entry advantage that Apple has long held will be challenged. Therefore, the most important change at this year's WWDC is not the upgrade of Siri itself, but Apple's attempt to elevate AI back to a system-level capability.

Whether it's cross-application calls, contextual understanding, Spotlight upgrades, or Safari intelligence, they essentially strengthen AI's role as the entry point of the operating system. Apple hopes to continue to control the first touchpoint between users and AI.

Second Response: Open Models, But Not Open Entry

Apple's public embrace of Google's Gemini actually sends an important signal that the company is willing to open model capabilities but will not relinquish control over the entry point. For Apple, the key in the future is not which model is used, but that all models are ultimately distributed through the Apple ecosystem.

In other words, Apple chooses to open the capability layer while firmly controlling the entry and distribution layers. This strategy is essentially a new platform strategy.

Third Response: Can AI Reactivate the Upgrade Cycle?

Compared to entry and ecology, the capital market is more concerned about whether AI can bring new growth. If AI only improves user experience, then its contribution to revenue is limited; but if AI becomes a watershed for device capabilities, it could potentially reactivate the hardware upgrade cycle From the information released at WWDC, Apple is working hard to deeply integrate AI with hardware capabilities. Some Apple Intelligence features require more advanced chips and higher-spec devices to support them. This means that in the future, users may need to upgrade to newer generations of iPhone, iPad, or Mac to obtain a complete AI experience.

For Apple, this may be the most critical aspect.

Why is Wall Street still cautious?

Despite Apple launching the largest AI upgrade plan in recent years, the capital market did not respond enthusiastically.

During the WWDC keynote, Apple's stock price turned from rising to falling, reflecting investors' lingering doubts about Apple's AI strategy.

In the past two years, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft have continuously reshaped the market's perception of AI capabilities, and investors have become accustomed to seeing more powerful models, advanced reasoning abilities, and more aggressive AI product roadmaps.

In contrast, Apple's focus in this release remains on Siri upgrades, system integration, and ecological synergy.

Whether it's cross-application calls, natural language interaction, image generation, or intelligent search, these capabilities have already been validated in products like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

Therefore, in the eyes of some investors, this year's WWDC was not a technological breakthrough that redefined industry direction.

At the same time, the competitive environment Apple faces is far more complex than during the mobile internet era.

In terms of model capabilities, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic still maintain a leading advantage; in the AI PC field, Microsoft is promoting deep integration of Copilot into the Windows ecosystem; and in the AI infrastructure space, Nvidia and cloud computing giants continue to expand their investment scale.

This means that although Apple has clarified its strategic direction, whether it can truly transform AI into a new growth engine still needs to be validated by product implementation and user feedback in the coming quarters.

However, some analysts point out that the market may currently be evaluating Apple using the standards set by OpenAI and Google.

And Apple has never been a company that relies on being the first to launch cutting-edge technology to achieve success.

Whether in the smartphone, smartwatch, or wireless earphone markets, what Apple excels at is transforming mature technology into product experiences for billions of users through software and hardware collaboration and ecosystem integration.

Apple chooses to guard the entrance rather than compete for the strongest model

As a result, this year's WWDC did not produce the next ChatGPT, nor did it launch any industry-disrupting AI products.

But Apple clearly demonstrated its strategic direction to the market.

In the face of competition in the AI era, Apple did not choose to compete with OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic in terms of model scale, but instead continued to adhere to its strongest path, mastering user entry through operating systems, hardware devices, and ecosystem systems.

In a context where AI capabilities are gradually becoming widespread, who controls the users, the traffic distribution channels, and the ecosystem may be more important than who has the strongest model WWDC 2026 may not be remembered by the market for a groundbreaking AI technology, but it is likely to become an important turning point for Apple in formally establishing its strategic direction for the AI era.

While the entire industry is still competing for "who has the strongest brain," Apple's answer is: it may not necessarily have the strongest model, but it must control the most important entry point. And this may be the new moat that Apple is trying to defend