Apple Goes Full AI
Tim Cook is ready to get in the game.
Not entirely sure it’s a fair juxtaposition, but Nvidia $NVDA was up 0.75 percent the day its 10-for-1 share split became official, while Apple $AAPL was down 1.91 percent the day it unveiled a thorough AI strategy.On hand for Apple CEO Tim Cook’s big reveal was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
At the core of Cook’s announcement is “Apple Intelligence,” a software update for its devices the company hopes will enable a personalized generative artificial intelligence experience for users.
Apple has also partnered with OpenAI and will use ChatGPT for some new AI functions its own system is not yet capable of handling.
“We think Apple Intelligence is going to be indispensable to the products that already play such an integral role in our lives,” Cook said.
“Very happy to be partnering with Apple to integrate ChatGPT into their devices later this year!” Altman wrote on X.
“Think you will really like it,” he added.
Ives called it a "historical day" that "did not disappoint." We’ll see how the personalization strategy plays out with Apple’s “golden installed base” and whether it catalyzes a critical iPhone upgrade cycle.
As for NVDA, it closed at $121.79. I think all need be said is that it traded near $120 on a pre-split basis as recently as October 2022. It’s up more than 900 percent since then.
Microsoft $MSFT, incidentally, was up 0.95 percent on Monday, and it’s actually a little bit safer for now atop the rankings of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalization.
The major equity indexes were modestly higher the day before the beginning of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the Nasdaq Composite leading the way up 0.35 percent and reaching a new record closing high for the 14th time this year.
The S&P 500 also hit a new closing high for the 26th time in 2024.
On a day when Big Tech names have captured all of our attention, utilities were the top-performing S&P sector, rising 1.27 percent.
Of course this is an AI story too.
A lot of the momentum electric utilities are enjoying right now is down to the power demands of new data centers.