Connect with us

Published

on

Apple is behind on artificial intelligence.

Now, the company is getting ready to unleash its first wave of user-facing AI products. And behind that push is John Giannandrea, a Silicon Valley veteran who is Apple’s top executive in charge of AI strategy.

On Monday, Apple will hold its annual developers conference called WWDC, where it’s expected to show customers and investors its take on generative AI across products like the iPhone, iPad and Mac, the fruit of Giannandrea’s work.

There’s enormous pressure on Apple to deliver an impressive slate of AI products and services. In interviews with CNBC, several people who know and have worked with Giannandrea over the years depict him as a humble and ahead-of-the-curve technologist, a quality that could be essential to Apple catching up in AI.

Siri is a mess and struggles with even the most basic questions. Apple doesn’t sell a product like the AI chatbots being pushed out by Microsoft or startups OpenAI and Anthropic. It doesn’t sell powerful chips to cloud companies running AI services like Nvidia. Apple stock has lagged while shares of its peers have ballooned this year on the promise of AI. The stock is up just 1% this year, while Nvidia, which overtook Apple in market value on Wednesday, is up 144%. Apple also lost its spot as the most valuable public company in the world to another AI leader, Microsoft, in January.

Apple declined to comment.

Wall Street sees this as a moment for Apple to prove it’s not behind on AI, serving as a catalyst for the stock through the second half of the year and spurring a hot upgrade cycle for the next iPhone model.

“We believe that AI features, combined with other Apple ecosystem investments and hardware upgrades for iPhone 16, has the potential to drive upside to product estimates by increasing upgrade rates,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note to investors this week.

Now it’s up to Giannandrea and his team to match those expectations.

As the tech world became increasingly obsessed with AI over the last 18 months or so, Apple began to talk more openly about how AI powers product features and development.

“We view AI and [machine learning] as fundamental, core technologies, and they are virtually embedded in every product that we build,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC in August of 2023.

Until now, Giannandrea’s team has worked on AI features that run behind the scenes on Apple devices and software. That includes things like an accessibility feature that can digitally mimic someone’s voice if they lose the ability to speak themselves, or automatic edits that make your iPhone photos look better.

If you ask the folks at Apple, the company has been using AI for many years to power what you do on your Apple devices without you even knowing about it. That’s expected to evolve into more user-facing features this year, like improvements to the Siri digital assistant, a partnership with OpenAI that’ll add the ChatGPT-maker’s tech to the iPhone’s software and sophisticated voice controls for its apps, according to a Bloomberg report last week.

People who have worked with Giannandrea over the years who spoke to CNBC characterize him as a humble, mild-mannered technologist who doesn’t seek attention like more flashy Silicon Valley executives typically do.

His most notable start was at a company called General Magic, which spun out of Apple and began business in the early 1990s making software for PDAs, the predecessors to today’s modern smartphones. Late in that decade he cofounded TellMe, a startup that made a voice-activated, online information service.

A TellMe cofounder, Anthony Accardi, said Giannandrea always seemed ahead of his time, working on technology like running software in the cloud many years before it became the standard.

“He has the foresight to recognize this is an inevitability and direction we’re going in the future,” Accardi said.

Giannandrea, known by most as “JG,” joined Google after the search giant acquired another startup he cofounded called Metaweb.

Geoffrey Hinton, known as one of the “godfathers” of AI, worked with Giannandrea at Google. Hinton said Giannandrea had a rare skillset among tech executives as both a great researcher and manager. Hinton pointed to a generative AI breakthrough Google made last decade: the ability to automatically caption images using AI.

“He really understood the importance of it,” Hinton said.

By 2018, Giannandrea oversaw AI at Google, and it was seen as a huge coup when Apple poached him that year. Within eight months, he was promoted to Apple’s leadership team, reporting directly to Cook along with other top executives like Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and services boss Eddy Cue. It was the biggest sign yet Apple was taking AI seriously, especially for future projects like its now-defunct self-driving car project.

So why leave Google, the perceived leader in AI at the time, for Apple? He didn’t like how leadership at Google had trouble making decisions and executing them, instead treating parts of the business like a skunkworks research lab, according to one person who spoke to Giannandrea recently. He found the opposite at Apple: leadership makes a decision, and then the rest of the company gets behind it to make it happen.

But in the six years since joining Apple, Giannandrea hasn’t been in the public view like his peers on Apple’s leadership team often are, showing off the company’s latest products and updates in flashy promotional videos littered with slick edits and dad jokes. Yet his many years of experience and expertise have earned him wide respect among other Silicon Valley leaders.

“I still go to him for wisdom,” said Emil Michael, a former top executive at Uber who also cofounded TellMe with Giannandrea.

Outside of Apple, Giannandrea sits on the board of SETI, the nonprofit organization founded in 1984 to detect radio signals from potential intelligent life across the cosmos. He also ran a data center business with his wife in recent years, which he eventually sold, adding to his list of successful exits at tech companies he cofounded.

At SETI, Giannadrea is an active and engaged board member, and even gave some of his own money to help fund a new project called COSMIC that uses powerful computers to analyze radio signals from outer space, SETI CEO Bill Diamond told CNBC. Giannandrea also sat on a SETI review committee to give feedback on research plans for planetary defenses against asteroids, according to Diamond.

“He’s got a very scientific mind, an engineering mind,” Diamond said. “The question about life beyond Earth fascinates him.”

Some who know Giannandrea told CNBC they’d be surprised if he made an appearance during Apple’s WWDC keynote next week, instead delegating the spotlight to members of his team or Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software.

“JG is not a showman,” one person who knows him well told CNBC. “That’s not his vibe.”

Continue Reading

Technology

How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

Published

on

By

How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.

Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.

TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.

“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”

Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.

“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.

But there may a dark side to this growth.

As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.

“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”

Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.

“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”

Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.

While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.

Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.

Continue Reading

Technology

Elon Musk’s xAI Holdings in talks to raise $20 billion, Bloomberg News reports

Published

on

By

Elon Musk's xAI Holdings in talks to raise  billion, Bloomberg News reports

The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.

Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.

The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.

Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Faber Report: Elon Musk held call with current xAI investors, sources say

The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Read the full Bloomberg story here.

— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Technology

Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Published

on

By

Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.

GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”

The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.

Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.

Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.

Read more CNBC tech news

Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.

During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.

Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.

“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.

WATCH: Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital’s Chris Ballard

Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital's Chris Ballard

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Trending