Apple CEO John Ternus has defended the company’s position in the AI race, telling Wired’s Steven Levy that Apple has no interest in shipping AI features just to keep up — “We don’t want to ship AI for AI’s sake.” The interview marks one of Ternus’s most detailed public statements on Apple’s AI strategy since he officially became CEO at the beginning of September 2026.
The Apple CEO AI interview comes as the company continues to fight the perception that it has fallen behind on artificial intelligence.
John Ternus (Credits: Mario Tama / Getty Images / TechCrunch)
Ternus Defends the Delayed Siri and Apple’s AI Position
Apple has often been described as behind on AI over the past couple of years, especially after it delayed the release of a more powerful version of Siri — which finally launched this summer. Ternus, a longtime Apple executive, acknowledged that “everyone has an opinion,” but insisted: “I really like where we’re at.”
He said Apple is “absolutely going to leverage AI” in its new products, but framed the company’s approach around invisibility rather than hype: “When we’re doing it right, people won’t have to think about whether it was AI that made this happen or more traditional software. What matters is, did we build something that they really love?”
AI Agents Won’t Kill Product Craft, Says the Apple CEO
When Levy pressed him on whether AI — particularly autonomous agents — might dramatically reshape Apple’s ecosystem, potentially making apps themselves unnecessary, Ternus didn’t sound worried. “That could make life really easy, I suppose,” he replied, “but the creation of products is a deeply human and personal thing, something that we love to do.”
The comments underline Apple’s long-standing playbook: enter categories late, focus on integration and polish, and let rivals fight over the hype cycle. Whether that patience pays off in the AI era — with competitors shipping agents and models at breakneck speed — is the bet Ternus is now publicly defending.
Also Read: The AI Graveyard: Apple Siri Delays, OpenAI’s Super App Flop and Startups That Didn’t Make It | AgentGrid.io Launches as a Shared Workspace for Humans and AI Agents
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