A group of shareholders sued Apple, accusing the company of exaggerating its progress in the field of artificial intelligence, which caused significant financial losses. About this informs NBC News.
It’s a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of investors who lost hundreds of billions of dollars after Apple introduced new products with minor changes related to artificial intelligence.
The plaintiffs allege that Apple underestimated the time needed to integrate advanced AI technologies into the Siri voice assistant, which negatively affected iPhone sales and the company’s stock price. The lawsuit covers the period up to June 9, when the company introduced new features and design updates, but made only limited strides in AI development.
CEO Tim Cook, CFO Kevan Parekh and former CFO Luca Maestri are also defendants in the case. Shareholders, including Eric Tucker, say that during the developer conference in June 2024, Apple made it seem as if artificial intelligence will be the centerpiece of the iPhone 16, introducing Apple Intelligence to improve Siri.
However, according to the plaintiffs, the company did not have a ready-made prototype of the relevant AI functions at the time and could not reasonably believe that they would be ready for release with the iPhone 16. They note that the true state of affairs became apparent on March 7, when it became known that the Siri update was postponed to 2026, and investor disappointment increased after the June conference.
Since the stock’s peak on December 26, 2024, the company has lost nearly 25% of its market value, which corresponds to a reduction in market capitalization of approximately $900 billion. For a long time, Apple tried to improve the speech capabilities of Siri, but could not find an effective technological solution. More than a year ago, the company transferred the team responsible for the interaction of Siri with users from the division of artificial intelligence to the department that deals with software interfaces.
Despite the announcement of a “new era” for Siri, which sounded during the presentation of the AI platform in June 2024, Apple has not yet completed a large-scale transformation of the software. The changes presented within Apple Intelligence were mostly external in nature and did not touch on deeper functional aspects.
