AI Advancement: Apple and Amazon's Total Embrace of AI Across Every Division

0:00Today on the podcast, I want to talk about two major tech companies that are getting more heavy into AI and that is Apple and Amazon. Now, Amazon really has had a lot of different AI tools on their AWS platform. They've honestly invested in this. I'm not going to say that they're a company that's kind of got left behind in the whole AI boom that we're seeing right now, but Apple definitely is one that has received a lot of criticism for just that. And it would appear that they are making a comeback and are essentially going to be getting into AI in a very, very big way. So today on the podcast, we're going to be diving into what Apple CEO Tim Cook has recently said, and then we're to be talking about what we're steering out of Amazon as well about AI getting integrated in a much, much larger way to their platform as well.

0:44So the headline news here that a lot of people are talking about first off is the fact that Apple's CEO Tim Cook recently gave a little bit of insight into the company's direction in a recent interview. I believe it was on CNBC, but essentially he confirmed that AI and machine learning are now, quote, virtually embedded in every product. He said this at a time when Apple is definitely, I think it's really interesting because people have definitely criticized Apple as kind of missing this big wave of AI hype. And this especially happened because they're in the last developer conference, they almost never mentioned AI.

1:19I'm not sure if they mentioned AI once throughout the entire thing, maybe a few times. There's one product in particular that can take your voice and make a AI clone of it. And they kind of have that for people with different disabilities to help them. Other than that, though, you know, contrasting that to Google, which has integrated into every single product and platform at their developer conference, I think a lot of people thought Apple missed the mark. You saw Google's stock price absolutely rip after their conference when they made all those announcements. And Apple's has remained relatively low.

1:52They're doing fine when it comes to iPhone and iPad purchases. their sales definitely are slipping there but their shares dipped two percent after you know seeing some of their projections recently and because essentially they're projecting that they're fourth they're gonna have their fourth consecutive quarter of sales declines and I think because of this they really realize that they they have to actually jump on the the latest thing that everyone is interested in which is AI so if you take a little bit of a closer look at the numbers you'll see that Apple's sales in the fiscal third quarter, they dipped by about 1.4 % to$81 billion.

2:32Earnings per share were still up 5 % to about$1.26. And these actually exceeded a lot of analysts' expectations. And I think that's because of an 8 % year-over-year growth in China. So China really essentially saved them. They're still slipping in sales. Without China, it would be much, much worse. but I think that they know they have to make some sort of big changes. So I think as the AI hype train kind of accelerates, a lot of these big tech companies are, and a lot of Apple's competitors are unveiling, you know, big features with AI embedded in them. I think Apple's been relatively quiet and a lot of people have been speculating because of that.

3:12And so, you know, dispelling a lot of these doubts, Cook reiterated that Apple has been delving into AI for years and is going to ramp up its investment in the domain. Elaborating on the company's commitment, Cook emphasized, quote, we view AI and machine learning as fundamental core technologies, and they are virtually embedded in every product we build. So this focus on AI, I think according to their CEO, also explains a bit of the surge in Apple's research and development expenditures that they have been going into. And so it would appear that Apple is making a bit of a shift and is going to start embedding AI more heavily into their tools.

3:51Now, that's one prediction based off of what we're hearing from these interviews, but there is one other side to it where he said that AI and machine learning are virtually embedded in every product that we build, not that we are building. And I think it's an important distinction because what he possibly could be saying here is, like look you guys are saying we're missing the ai boom we already were the ai boom like everything we have has ai in it already and i think that that isn't necessarily uh hitting the it's not giving the consumer exactly what they're asking for here because you see a lot of people with all of this new are realizing all the new capabilities of ai with chat gbt and all these incredible ai tools that are coming out and they're wanting more they know that more is now possible and if they can see in this you know little discord server that they go to to use mid journey that they can do these cool things they know the capabilities and they're like how come my iphone which is extremely expensive and highly technological how come that doesn't have any of these same you know features or tools that i'm able to go and get off of like you know a little discord server for ten dollars a month for mid journey now not to discount what mid journey is doing it's obviously incredible but for a lot of consumers they're probably baffled as to why one of the most you know wealthy companies in the world apple is not able to replicate or integrate some of this really cool technology that they're finding very useful um from much much smaller companies so i think i hope this means that apple is going to be taking a big step in a new direction and integrating ai more heavily in ways that are is exciting and interesting exactly like what google did google did an incredible job executing on this i will definitely give them kudos to that it'll be interesting to see if Apple can can do that as well so the other thing I want to talk about today is the fact that Amazon's generative AI ambitions would appear to be growing so while Apple works to kind of integrate AI deeply into its ecosystem Amazon is making strides with its focus on generative AI and this is specifically what I think consumers are craving more than just you know being told that yeah we have some like machine learning algorithms in the back end to serve you better results on whatever platform on Apple you're using.

6:05They want to see generative AI. They see this as an absolutely groundbreaking technology. It's absolutely incredible. There's so many applications. They know that the people over at Apple can be creative enough to figure out how to integrate some really mind-blowing generative AI. At the end of the day, that's what they're paying for. They want their minds to be blown. They want to see something cool and amazing and new and unique, and that's what's going to drive iPhone sales, in my opinion. So in any case, it would appear that Amazon is hitting the nail on the head here because they are focusing on generative AI.

6:33So the company's CEO, Andy Jassy, mentioned during Amazon's last earnings call that every division, every division in Amazon is actively developing generative AI applications to redefine and amplify customer experiences. Thank you, Amazon. Honestly, this is all Apple had to say. Instead of saying this, they said, we have built AI into all of our products. Like, no, we don't care. Facebook's built AI into their products since the beginning. and obviously their usage dwindled and died. Like having previous AI in your product is not indicative of being cutting edge technology. We want to see the new stuff, the cool stuff, the generative AI.

7:13And it seems like Apple is absolutely doing this. Jesse highlighted, inside quote, inside Amazon, every one of our teams is working on building generative AI applications that reinvent and enhance their customer experience. Amazon's core strategy, it would appear, hinges on AWS, Amazon Web Services. their cloud infrastructure, and using that to bolster generative AI applications. So a prime example is AWS's CodeWhisper system, which is designed to augment developers' efficiency by recommending code snippets. So while Jesse remained somewhat reserved about Amazon's specific plans for generative AI and its direct-to-consumer products, he emphasized its paramount importance across all business facets, from optimizing operations to redefining customer experiences in sectors like AWS's advertising, devices, and entertainment.

8:02And he also believes that AI will be, you know, he says, quote, it will be at the heart of what we do. So I think given current trends, it's anticipated that Amazon might unveil AI-powered products, possibly even an Alexa-backed product, which would be really, really cool in its upcoming September 20th event. So that's the date to look out for. A lot of people were looking out for Apple's event for this big AI unveiling that they thought they would be doing. Did not see it happen. I would put money down that Amazon is not going to miss the signal coming from the market. They're going to be more like Google and unveil some stuff in September.

8:42Because just from what their CEO is saying here, it appears that they're a lot more in sync with what it would appear consumers want. So if someone was going to speculate based on the advancements by Google and Microsoft with generative AI chatbots, I think it wouldn't be surprising if Amazon introduces its own AI-driven chatbot on its platform. It definitely has the data and the resources, the capacity to build that. So I think that that's going to be really, really interesting to follow. So I think as the tech world kind of awaits more revelations from Apple and Microsoft and Google and AWS and all of these companies, I think one thing is evident.

9:17The future is increasingly AI centric. So whether it's embedding intelligence into every device, as Apple suggests, it's already done and hopefully will do in a better way, in my opinion, or developing generative applications that really redefine customer experience as Amazon is currently envisioning. I think AI's kind of always present situation we're seeing right now in tech can't be overstated. I think that this is going to be the battleground that these big tech companies have to fight over to see who kind of becomes the supreme ruler. I think it's going to really dictate where customers go.

9:54They want to see the wow factor. They want to see amazing new things. They want to be interested and intrigued. And I think that the platforms that cater to that are going to be the ones that are successful right now. because consumers are finding that, right? They're finding ChadGBT, they're finding MidJourney, they're finding Runway for AI video, they're finding these incredible products and they want to see them in their mainstream devices and services from the big tech companies. They don't want those ones to be left behind while these little startups take off. And if that is the case, the little startups will definitely threaten the bigger companies, as we're seeing Google felt very threatened by ChadGBT and had to integrate AI into their search.

10:31I think that that was a good move and the big companies need to do that or risk becoming somewhat obsolete and seeing their sales continue to decline quarter after quarter as Apple is currently seeing.