Apple's John Ternus succeeds Tim Cook as CEO, AI is top priority
On Sept 1, Apple formally completed its leadership transition with SVP of Hardware Engineering John Ternus succeeding Tim Cook as CEO, with AI explicitly identified as his top priority.
On September 1, Apple formally completed its leadership transition. Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus succeeded Tim Cook as Apple's new CEO, taking the helm of the $4.6 trillion consumer-electronics giant. Cook moved to Executive Chairman, continuing to handle engagement with global policymakers.
This is Apple's first CEO transition since Cook succeeded Steve Jobs in 2011. Under Cook's 15-year tenure, Apple's market value grew from $350 billion to roughly $4 trillion. The 51-year-old Ternus joined Apple in 2001 and led iPhone, iPad, and Mac engineering over the past 5 years, widely recognized inside Apple as a hardware expert.
AI has been explicitly identified as Ternus' top priority. Apple has been criticized since late 2022 when ChatGPT ignited the AI wave for underwhelming Apple Intelligence and delayed Siri upgrades. In August Apple announced layoffs of more than 200 across Siri, Vision Pro, and select AI software teams as part of restructuring R&D.
The new Siri AI will officially debut at Apple's September 9 event, positioned to directly compete with ChatGPT-class agents. Siri AI uses a hybrid architecture of cloud-based Google Gemini plus on-device proprietary models, with the custom Gemini variant coming from Apple's roughly $1 billion-per-year partnership with Google.