From the earliest Macintosh to the iPhone, I have long held the badge of Apple loyalty. As someone who watched the company evolve from garage startup status to the world’s most valuable brand, I have learned that Apple does not simply enter markets — it aims to redefine them. Now, in the era of artificial intelligence, the stakes could not be higher. With rivals waving the banner of true general-intelligence breakthroughs, Apple’s task is clear: deliver nothing less than a genuinely transformative AI — and do so within the company’s signature framework of privacy, control, and sustainability. Anything short of that will feel like a let-down.
Consider the playing field. Across from Apple stands xAI (under Elon Musk), which boldly forecasts that its upcoming model Grok‑5 has a “10 % and rising” chance of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) — not simply a smarter chatbot, but something at the threshold of human-level versatility and reasoning. Musk’s language is unmistakeably provocative: “Grok-5 will be AGI or something indistinguishable from AGI.” Meanwhile, Apple’s internal team warns that its next-generation voice assistant overhaul is under “concern” in early builds. A loyal Apple user such as myself is left asking: is Apple showing up to a sprint with a leisurely stroll?
To be fair, Apple has not been idle. The company’s “Apple Intelligence” initiative in iOS 26 introduces over twenty new AI features — from live translations in Messages to natural-language search for your conversations. Yet these are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The problem is that in the current climate, evolutionary might no longer suffice. With rivals openly chasing the “AGI horizon,” Apple must aim higher.
Herein lies the sharp edge of expectation. Apple’s longstanding brand promise — user trust, integrated hardware/software, privacy by design, and environmental stewardship — gives it a chance to lead not just in capability but in responsibility. If Apple is going to sprint in the AGI race, it must win not simply by being capable, but by being credibly safe and credibly green. That means delivering an AI that operates on-device (or with minimal cloud leakage), that upholds the company’s stance on data protection and user agency, and that does not extract a hidden cost in energy consumption or model bloat.
I must admit a touch of smugness: after so many years of being an Apple devotee, I expect the company to reinvent rather than catch-up. When Apple jumped into smartphones, it didn’t build a better flip-phone — it built a new platform. So now, if Apple merely offers “Siri 2.0” or a smarter prompt-engine tethered to cloud servers, I will take it as a signal that Apple has ceded the frontier to others. The deeper truth is this: in an era when AGI is being hyped and pursued with audacity, Apple must deliver something indistinguishable from AGI, if only to maintain its leadership in the fizzing AI ecosystem. Anything less, and the faithful lineage from the Lisa to the iPhone 17 will feel like a warm-up act.
Of course, the “safe and green” clause is non-negotiable. Apple cannot claim leadership in AI if its model training burns energy like a cryptocurrency farm, or if its data-handling profiles users in ways that betray its ethos. The environment of trust and the environment of actual carbon footprint must both pass muster. That is precisely the domain where Apple could convert its brand virtue into AI virtue — creating a model that is not just powerful, but principled. In that sense, Apple’s margin for error is thinner — but so too is its margin for reputation loss.
What about timing? Apple’s reports suggest that the long-promised Siri overhaul has been delayed because “the system didn’t converge in the way we needed it to” in early internal builds. This only underscores the urgency: while Apple perfects, others broadcast. For a company accustomed to shipping polished hardware on time, this delay signals a moment of reckoning. Will Apple choose the conservative path — incremental upgrade now, major leap later — or will it vault ahead, announcing something unexpectedly bold this year?
In conclusion: as an early Apple adopter, I have watched the company shine not because it followed markets, but because it dared to redefine them. Now, the AI verdict looms. If Apple’s next chapter is to maintain that legacy, it must deliver not a smarter assistant — but something that feels as though it inhabits the realm of general intelligence. It must do so with the eco-sensitivity and user-centric trust that have become its hallmarks. And yes, I will be watching — quietly smug, somewhat patient, but absolutely certain that Apple owes its users nothing less than the grand leap. Because if history has taught us anything, it is that when Apple decides to innovate, it sets the bar for everyone else. In the age of AGI-ambitions, the bar must be set high indeed.