Apple’s cautious AI strategy seen opening 2026 catch‑up window

Unlike Microsoft, Google or Meta, Apple appears to be pacing itself on AI infrastructure and flagship launches. If the reporting is accurate, the company has deliberately slowed down Apple Intelligence deployment, leaned on partners like Google for some model capabilities, and conserved a gigantic cash pile. That’s a very Apple move: wait for a clearer sense of where the technology and user expectations will settle, then deploy overwhelming resources into a tightly integrated hardware–software stack.([finance.sina.com.cn](https://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2025-12-31/doc-inhesahv5397153.shtml))

From an AGI‑timeline standpoint, Apple is unlikely to push the frontier of model capabilities, but it may well be the company that normalizes everyday use of strong general intelligence on billions of devices once the frontier is established. A 2026 “catch‑up window” would likely focus less on beating GPT‑n in benchmarks and more on shipping privacy‑preserving, on‑device agents that feel safe and reliable to mainstream users. That could dramatically expand the real‑world impact and data feedback loops of AGI‑like systems, even if Apple itself remains a consumer‑product player rather than a pure research lab.