Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter. You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here. It's day one for John Ternus. He has eight days to settle in as Apple's new CEO. On September 9, Apple will stage its annual iPhone pageant. The reported headliner: its first foldable iPhone. No pressure, then. Further out, reports point to an AI home hub, camera-equipped AirPods, smart glasses, and a robotic assistant. It seems Apple has no shortage of places to put AI. It still has to make AI worth putting there, though. That is Ternus' problem. Apple had a head start in the AI-assistants race. Now it is playing catch-up. Apple delayed its AI overhaul of Siri, then turned to Google's Gemini for the next generation of Apple Intelligence. You can read that as a way to avoid paying Google-sized bills for research and development. You can also read it as an admission of weakness. Then there is the people problem. Apple has suffered a talent exodus. Foundation-models leader Ruoming Pang, engineering head Frank Chu, and design VP Alan Dye all left Apple for the same rival. Yes, Meta has become something of an Appl
Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter. You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here. It's day one for John Ternus. He has eight days to settle in as Apple's new CEO. On September 9, Apple will stage its annual iPhone pageant. The reported headliner: its first foldable iPhone. No pressure, then. Further out, reports point to an AI home hub, camera-equipped AirPods, smart glasses, and a robotic assistant. It seems Apple has no shortage of places to put AI. It still has to make AI worth putting there, though. That is Ternus' problem. Apple had a head start in the AI-assistants race. Now it is playing catch-up. Apple delayed its AI overhaul of Siri, then turned to Google's Gemini for the next generation of Apple Intelligence. You can read that as a way to avoid paying Google-sized bills for research and development. You can also read it as an admission of weakness. Then there is the people problem. Apple has suffered a talent exodus. Foundation-models leader Ruoming Pang, engineering head Frank Chu, and design VP Alan Dye all left Apple for the same rival. Yes, Meta has become something of an Appl
