Tim Cook confirms Apple will ramp up AI spending, ‘open’ to acquisitions

Apple first unveiled its artificial intelligence strategy at the company’s WWDC event last year. More than a year later, some of the iPhone maker’s so called ‘Apple Intelligence’ features have still not arrived while the rollout of many others have been marred by unwanted suprises. 

However, CEO Tim Cook remains commited on Apple’s AI roadmap and during the recent earnings call on Thursday stated that company is “significantly growing our investments” on artificial intelligence. In an interaction with CNBC, Cook also noted that Apple is “embedding it across our devices, across our platforms and across the company.”

More importantly, perhaps for the first time ever, Cook confirmed that Apple is ‘open’ to acquisitions in order to accelerate its AI roadmap. He also noted that Apple had acquired “around” seven companies this year but none of them had been “huge in terms of dollar amount.”

“We’re open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap,” Cook stated.