In late 2022, OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT spurred an explosion of interest in the possibilities for artificial intelligence.
Within months, some of the biggest tech companies in the world, including Microsoft, Meta and Google, joined the party, launching their own AI chatbots and generative AI tools. By the end of 2023, Nvidia proved it was the only company in the world positioned to make huge amounts of money by powering those services.
Fast-forward to 2024, and a big theme in AI involves our consumer favorite gadgets, with tech companies trying to bring AI to phones and laptops.
Earlier this year, Samsung launched its AI-powered Galaxy S24 smartphone. Microsoft, partnering with companies like Dell, HP and Qualcomm, started selling a new crop of AI computers over the summer called Copilot+ PCs. A few weeks ago, Google launched its Pixel 9 series of AI phones.
So far, these new devices have underwhelmed. Rather than creating whole new experiences, they’ve introduced features for making it easier to edit photos, talk to a chatbot or provide live captions for videos. Then there’s Humane’s AI pin, a clip-on gizmo that launched in April and was immediately panned in reviews. By August, reports surfaced that daily returns were outpacing sales.
On Monday, the company is expected to show off its new family of iPhones, packed with the AI capabilities announced in June. The system is called Apple Intelligence, and it’ll be rolling out over the coming months. Current Apple devices like the iPhone 15 Pro and some newer iPads and Macs will also have access to it.
But Apple Intelligence will be free. So the company needs to convince hundreds of millions of iPhone customers that it’s time for an upgrade.
That’s what Wall Street is watching for when the latest iPhones go on sale this month. Will Apple Intelligence move more iPhones? Or will the post-pandemic sales slump continue?
“The reality is GenAI is still in its early stages and use cases that have been announced are probably only the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come,” said Nabila Popal, a mobile analyst at IDC.
Apple plans to roll out Apple Intelligence in stages. It will initially only be available in U.S. English, and will likely be blocked in countries with strict AI regulations, like China. Plus, many of the features Apple announced in June won’t be ready on Day 1. Instead, they’ll be introduced in phases over the coming months.
Because of Apple’s measured rollout strategy, even the most bullish analysts expect it to take years for the company to get its AI into the hands of the 1 billion or so iPhone users.
Do consumers want AI gadgets?
Apple typically adds modest enhancements to its iPhones each year. The camera gets a little better. The processors are faster. The battery life improves. None of that is compelling enough to get consumers to rush to upgrade every year or two as they did in the earlier days of the iPhone when big hardware innovations were standard. You can expect the same kind of iterative hardware improvements for this year’s phones.
That puts more pressure on Apple Intelligence to deliver. But consumer appetite is a question mark.
Results from a recent survey by research firm Canalys showed just 7% of consumers had a “very high inclination” to make a purchasing decision because of AI. Interest is significantly higher in Apple’s two most lucrative markets, the U.S. and China, but there’s a giant disparity between them.
In the U.S., 15% of respondents said they had a high or very high inclination to buy gadgets because of AI. In China, where consumers tend to care more about tech specs, that number was 43%. The relatively muted interested, especially in the U.S., suggests that Apple will need its marketing machine to tell a compelling story around what AI can do for the typical iPhone user.
“There are lots of interesting features, but you have to bring those to the normal user in situations they can use repeatedly, not just a one-time feature,” said Gerrit Schneemann, an analyst at Counterpoint Technology. “It’s hard to tell that story in a store with a poster or a two-second sales pitch.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California, on June 10, 2024.
Nic Coury | Afp | Getty Images
Apple Intelligence will use the personal data stored on your phone and help supercharge Siri into a more capable assistant. Plus, app developers will be able tap into Apple intelligence, so you can use it everywhere on your phone. Schneemann said that’s a fresh take on AI compared with Google or Samsung.
“There is the potential to help speed up that educational curve and permeate into the market,” he said.
Samsung’s Galaxy S24, its latest flagship device, has sold better than last year’s model. But there’s little evidence that AI is the primary driver, IDC’s Popal said. Apple is in another category.
“The psyche for premium Apple customers is different,” Popal said, adding that many iPhone customers buy their phones using financing plans, which make it easier to upgrade.
More recently, Google launched its Pixel 9 series of phones, which has the company’s digital AI assistant, Gemini, built directly into the software. Google’s smartphones have never been major sellers, but they often show what’s possible on Android phones before those features make their way to Samsung or Motorola devices.
The marquee feature on the Pixel is a version of Gemini that can carry out natural conversations instead of responding to one command at a time, a capability other Android phones with Gemini should get in the future.
While the reviews for the Pixel 9 were positive, it’s still too early to tell if AI can finally juice sales.
In the PC market, Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs launched this summer, but without their marquee AI feature, Recall. (Microsoft learned the hard way it’s not a good idea to launch a product that takes screenshots of everything you do on your computer every few seconds.) Recall will hit this market later this fall for a limited number of early testers.
Without Recall, there’s not much AI in this batch of AI PCs.
The real benefit for now seems to be the power and performance from the new PC chips from Qualcomm that debuted in Copilot+ PCs. The processors are based on the same technology as your phone chip, meaning they’re still plenty powerful without using up the battery.
“This is the transition of the traditional PC, turning it to look like a mobile device,” said Alex Katouzian, Qualcomm’s general manager for mobile and wearable technology. He said Microsoft is working on more AI features and fixing the privacy issues with Recall.
Microsoft said it expects 50 million Copilot+ PCs to ship this year, which would represent about 1 in 5 PCs expected to be sold. Katouzian said Qualcomm-powered Copilot PCs are “on track” so far.
Still, Copilot PCs made up “a relatively small percentage” of PC sales at Best Buy this summer, CEO Corie Barry said on the company’s most recent earnings call. She added that customers “just want to replace and upgrade” without necessarily looking for a device with AI or spending a premium for it.
Apple’s AI rollout
If Apple can buck the trend and successfully wow its customers with Apple Intelligence, the next step will be rolling it out globally to drive iPhone sales in markets outside the U.S.
There are other roadblocks in its way.
China, where Apple generates nearly a fifth of its sales, requires government approval before an AI model can launch in the country. Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC in August his team is working with regulators in China to make that happen.
Then there’s the EU, which has passed a slew of stringent laws regulating the world’s largest technology companies. Apple said this summer it won’t launch Apple Intelligence right away in the EU because of those regulations.
In the meantime, Apple Intelligence users will be members of a relatively exclusive club. Apple’s job is to convince customers to pay up for a new device and join.
“We’re very excited about the value that Apple Intelligence gives to users,” Cook told CNBC in August. “For that reason, we think it’s another compelling reason to upgrade … we’ll see how the season goes once we start shipping, but we’re very excited about it.”
Correction: Humane’s AI pin launched in April. An earlier version misstated the month,
Elon Musk, during a news conference with President Donald Trump, inside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on May 30, 2025.
Tom Brenner | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Tesla shares fell 6% in premarket trading on Thursday after the company reported a second straight quarter of declining automotive sales.
Elon Musk’s electric carmaker reported a top and bottom line miss on second-quarter results, noting that automotive revenue fell 16% year-on-year to $16.7 billion.
On an earnings call, Musk said Tesla “probably could have a few rough quarters” ahead as a result of the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits.
“I am not saying that we will, but we could,” Musk said.
Tesla has been facing rising competition in key markets like China and Europe, especially from lower costs Chinese electric vehicle players.
Tesla shares have been hammered this year with the stock down nearly 18% to date, not including the Thursday premarket move.
Along with Tesla’s core auto business coming under pressure, Musk’s own political activity has been in focus.
The tech billionaire played a key role at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, under President Donald Trump‘s administration and has endorsed Germany’s extreme anti-immigrant AfD party. In recent months, the two former allies have clashed over the president’s spending bill. Musk has since said he is forming his own political party.
Some investors have urged the billionaire to step away from politics, for fear that his involvement is hurting Tesla’s brand and sales.
Tesla investors have been eagerly waiting for the company to release a cheaper model to refresh the aging lineup and perhaps reinvigorate sales. Tesla management said it started limited production of the more affordable model in June and expects to ramp that up in the second half of the year.
Still, the outlook for the rest of the year remains murky as Tesla did not provide any official guidance — in a departure from earlier this year, when management said Tesla would return to growth in 2025.
“Management initially guided for deliveries growth in 2025. We interpret no guidance as a signal that management is no longer forecasting volume growth. This aligns with our expectation for deliveries to decline in 2025,” Seth Goldstein, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a Wednesday note.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds an executive order related to AI after signing it during the “Winning the AI Race” Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to keep “woke AI” models out of Washington and to turn the country into an “AI export powerhouse” through the signing of three artificial intelligence-focused executive orders on Wednesday.
The phasing out of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives — an umbrella term encompassing various practices, policies, and strategies aimed at fostering a more inclusive and equitable culture — has been a major focus of the second Trump administration. Now, the White House is bringing the battle to AI.
The “PREVENTING WOKE AI IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT” order states that the federal government “has the obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas.”
The executive order identifies DEI as one of the “most pervasive and destructive” of these ideologies to be kept out of AI models used by the government.
“LLMs shall be neutral, nonpartisan tools that do not manipulate responses in favor of ideological dogmas such as DEI,” the order said, adding that developers should not intentionally encode partisan or ideological judgments into an LLM’s outputs unless those judgments are prompted by users.
As acknowledged by the order, the use of AI is increasingly prevalent across Americans’ daily lives and is expected to play a critical role in the way they learn and consume information — making “reliable outputs” necessary.
In the eyes of the Trump administration, DEI in AI can lead to discriminatory outcomes; distort and manipulate AI model outputs in regard to race and sex; and incorporate concepts like critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality and systemic racism.
“DEI displaces the commitment to truth in favor of preferred outcomes and, as recent history illustrates, poses an existential threat to reliable AI,” the anti-woke order reads.
Without giving specifics, the order refers to past examples of this, including a major AI model that changed the race or sex of historical figures such as the pope and Founding Fathers when prompted for images.
In response to backlash last year, Google had pulled its Gemini AI image generation feature, saying it offered “inaccuracies” in historical pictures. Months later, the company rolled out an improved version.
Instead of “woke AI”, the government should procure “truth-seeking” AI models that “prioritize historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity, and shall acknowledge uncertainty where reliable information is incomplete or contradictory,” the order stated.
However, it adds that the federal government “should be hesitant” to regulate the functionality of AI models in the private marketplace.
In other AI developments on Wednesday, the Trump administration signed an order to spur innovation in the technology by removing what it called “onerous Federal regulations that hinder AI development and deployment.”
Another order aims to establish and implement an “American AI Exports Program” to support the development and deployment of the U.S. AI technology stack abroad.
The moves are part of the administration’s “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” which it says identifies 90 federal policy actions across three pillars: the acceleration of innovation, building of AI infrastructure, and leadership in international diplomacy and security.
Some of the biggest names of Estonia’s tech scene are backing Lightyear, a startup looking to become Europe’s answer to commission-free trading pioneer Robinhood.
Based in London, Lightyear develops an app that lets users invest in a range of over 5,000 stocks, exchange-traded funds and money market funds. It was founded by two former Wise employees, Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, in 2021.
The company is set to announce later on Thursday that it has raised $23 million in a new round of funding led by NordicNinja, a Japanese-backed venture capital fund based in Europe. Estonian tech entrepreneur Markus Villig, who co-founded ride-hailing unicorn Bolt has also invested.
Lightyear CEO Sokk told CNBC that the firm didn’t necessarily need to raise more cash for the business but chose to do so because of the caliber of investors involved.
“People like Markus have been building massive companies in many, many markets, and this is something that’s really exciting for us because it’s so hard to go into all the markets and understand their local dynamics and what people need,” he said.
Lightyear currently operates in 25 countries. However, with help from angel investors like Bolt’s Villig, the firm will be able to launch in another five markets “pretty quickly,” Sokk said.
Villig told CNBC that it can be “challenging to scale a business across multiple countries in a heavily regulated sector,” adding that Europe’s less developed retail investing market provides ample opportunities for disruption.
Other Estonian angel investors who have previously backed Lightyear also participated in the funding round, including Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, Checkout.com’s formerChief Technology Officer Ott Kaukver and Skype founding engineer Jaan Tallinn.
Estonia is widely considered a prominent tech hub in Europe. The country is home to the highest number of unicorns per capita in Europe, according to the Estonian Investment Agency. Meanwhile, Estonia’s e-residency scheme has also enabled foreigners to become digital residents and launch their companies in the country.
The new round values five-year-old Lightyear at between $200 million and $300 million, significantly higher than its valuation in 2022 when it raised $25 million, according to two people familiar with the matter who preferred to remain anonymous as the information has not been made public.
Pushing into AI, crypto
Alongside the additional funding, Lightyear is also launching new artificial intelligence features. AI has been a hot area of investment for startups following the explosive popularity of generative AI services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
One of the features, called “Why Did It Move,” allows users to select a point in time on a stock chart and see what happened that day to cause a jump or fall in a company’s share price. The firm is also using AI to provide “bull” and “bear” theses on stocks as well as short updates on assets in their own portfolios.
“In the end, you’re going to have two models” when it comes to investing, according to Sokk: “Self-driving money,” where you ask an AI to achieve certain investment goals, and a “manual gearbox” approach of figuring out different strategies and approaches on your own.
Still, the market for online investment products is heavily competitive. Lightyear faces some hefty competition from both incumbent brokerage services as well as more modern tech players such as Robinhood, Revolut and Trade Republic.
However, Sokk insists Lightyear is building a differentiated enough product to stand out from the crowd. While competitors like Robinhood profit from offering risky products like crypto and margin trading, Lightyear is focused on serving long-term investors, he told CNBC.
To that end, Sokk said Lightyear is planning on rolling out a crypto product of its own in two months’ time — one that’s “more focused on a long-term view.”