Reuters: "Openness" Prevails in the AI Era, Apple's "Control" Advantage May Become a Weakness
According to Reuters on April 22nd, Apple has built its business empire on "control." However, this advantage may become its weakness in the AI era. For decades, Apple has created secure and easy-to-use devices through a strictly managed ecosystem, encompassing self-developed chips, proprietary operating systems, and carefully selected applications.
This strategy helped the iPhone become the most successful consumer product in history, generating nearly $210 billion in revenue last year. It also allowed Apple to remain the world's most valuable company for most of the past decade, until it was surpassed by AI chipmaker Nvidia in 2024.
However, when Apple's new CEO John Ternus takes the reins from Tim Cook this fall, he will face a critical question about Apple's survival in the AI era. This question is testing the limits of Apple's long-standing practice of strictly vetting the applications and services that can use its hardware.
AI Needs Openness
The current wave of AI innovation is largely driven by openness: rapid iteration, broad developer access, and tools that can run across platforms.
Companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta have released various models. These models sometimes evolve in unexpected directions, but they are continuously and demonstrably improving, attracting developers and users at a speed unmatched by traditional product cycles.
Apple has remained cautious, as expected. As a loyal guardian of the vision of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Cook has consistently emphasized that strict control is the only way to achieve privacy protection and product quality.
This restraint has earned Apple the trust of its users, but it has also subjected the company to antitrust pressure in the United States and abroad, including a legal battle with Epic Games, the developer of "Fortnite," and new EU regulations forcing Apple to open up more competition on its devices.
Ternus Needs to Choose Between Openness and Closure
As AI develops, this contradiction has been further exacerbated, as the AI boom often favors speed and experimentation.
“The choice of Ternus, a hardware executive, as CEO may indicate that Apple still believes the future of AI will run on highly integrated devices, not just software,” said Timothy Hubbard, assistant professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
“This may be a wise move, but it also carries deeper risks: if the next era values openness and faster iteration more, then Apple’s strengths, such as rigor, refinement, and control, could become constraints. Apple started with rapid innovation, and perhaps the company needs to return to that starting point.”
OpenClaw is a Hit
From Jobs rescuing Apple from trouble in the late 1990s to Cook turning Apple’s services business into a $110 billion growth engine, Apple has proven that tight integration can bring long-term customers and lasting profits.
Today, Ternus’s biggest challenge will be integrating AI into Apple’s almost airtight ecosystem at a time when a more open model is sweeping the globe.
One example is OpenClaw, software that can schedule a large group of AI “agents” to perform complex tasks traditionally handled by humans. The software has become a viral hit in China, with users ranging from elementary school students to the elderly.
But OpenClaw also demonstrates the risks of openness. The software is still rough, has security vulnerabilities, and may take actions that are concerning, including exposing private financial information on the open internet. These contradictions are precisely what Apple has long tried to avoid.
Ternus has already made it clear in media interviews that Apple is more interested in launching products, rather than raw technology like OpenClaw that can generate attention but cannot become a daily necessity like the iPhone.
However, Apple has also shown some flexibility, using AI technology developed by competitors when necessary. In January, Apple partnered with Google to use its Gemini model to enhance its voice assistant Siri.
Learning from Nvidia
Hubbard at Notre Dame says Apple can also learn from Nvidia’s approach. Last month, Nvidia announced that it would revamp OpenClaw’s open-source software to launch a product called NemoClaw, adding security mechanisms and usage restrictions to make it stable in a commercial environment.
Gene Munster, a long-time Apple analyst and investor at Deepwater Asset Management, says Ternus’s focus on quality will help him change the narrative about Apple, just as Cook did by aggressively developing the services business to prove that Apple’s financial fate is not solely dependent on the iPhone.
“Staying true to Apple’s culture should allow Apple to move more aggressively into AI without significantly sacrificing quality,” Munster wrote in a report to clients.