An advertising watchdog said Tuesday that Apple went too far with marketing that touted the availability of Apple Intelligence features that weren’t released when the ads were broadcast.
The National Advertising Division, a non-profit focused on “truth in advertising,” said that following an inquiry from the organization about Siri improvements, Apple told it that it would permanently discontinue a TV ad called “More Personal Siri” that focused on a big AI improvement to Siri.
That ad premiered in September and promoted the iPhone 16 with unreleased features. In March, Apple said it would delay the release of those features to “the coming year.”
“NAD recommended that Apple avoid conveying the message that features are available when they are not,” the group said.
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company told NAD it disagreed with the findings but would follow the group’s recommendations, the non-profit said.
NAD’s decision is the latest blow to Apple’s reputation with artificial intelligence technology and its struggles to market the iPhone 16’s AI features.
Besides pulling the ad, which featured “The Last of Us” actor Bella Ramsey, off of YouTube in March, Apple has made other changes to its marketing.
Apple’s website no longer says Apple Intelligence is “available now” — the tagline now reads “AI for the rest of us.” Apple has also begun running a new ad focused on another Apple Intelligence feature called “Clean Up” that can edit objects or people out of photo’s backgrounds.
The company in June unveiled Apple Intelligence, its marketing term for its suite of AI features. Apple’s newest iPhones, the company said at the time, would be able to access image generators, custom emojis, intelligently-summarized notifications, and eventually, a vastly improved Siri.
When the iPhone 16 was released in September, Apple Intelligence was featured on television ads, billboards and the company’s website as a key reason to buy the iPhone 16. But the AI features rolled out in waves over the course of months as software updates, even while Apple touted the features.
Apple did not make ‘adequate’ disclosures
NAD’s decision is focused on Apple promoting features that weren’t available to the public at the time of the ads.
“Apple did not adequately disclose that the features were not available and reasonable consumers could take away the message that these features were available at the time these claims were first made, which they were not,” the decision said.
The NAD is part of BBB National Programs, a non-profit that offers programs to various industries so they can regulate themselves. Companies that participate in the voluntary program agree to submit to and participate in the NAD’s evaluation process.
At the end of a decision, NAD usually decides whether specific advertising claims were supported by facts. If they are unsupported, NAD pushes for changes. The Apple case was brought by the NAD itself, said Phyllis Marcus, NAD vice president.
“Apple participated and agreed to take our decisions and recommendations into account,” said Phyllis Marcus, the VP of National Advertising Division.
The majority of NAD cases are brought by one company complaining about a rival’s ads, but NAD is starting to look at claims around AI tools, Marcus said. The Apple decision signals an increased emphasis by regulators and other oversight organizations to scrutinize AI claims.
In its report, NAD found that some key Apple Intelligence features — such as image generation and ChatGPT integration — weren’t available at launch despite being advertised as “available now.”
The company’s claims around Apple Intelligence are now accurate, NAD said. It added that Apple had made changes to its marketing materials about the Siri feature that “adequately” communicated the status of the delayed feature.
Most Apple Intelligence features announced last June have launched and are turned on by default on new iPhones in the U.S.
Investors are looking for signs that Apple Intelligence could boost Apple stock by driving more iPhone upgrades than usual.
About 80% of U.S. users with supported iPhone have tried the features, and more than 50% of current iPhone owners who are looking to upgrade say it will be very important to have Apple Intelligence on their next device, according to results from a Morgan Stanley survey published Tuesday.
Over half of respondents said they would pay $10 or more per month for the feature, the note said, suggesting that consumers see value in the software.
FILE PHOTO: Ariel Cohen during a panel at DLD Munich Conference 2020, Europe’s big innovation conference, Alte Kongresshalle, Munich.
Picture Alliance for DLD | Hubert Burda Media | AP
Navan, a developer of corporate travel and expense software, expects its market cap to be as high as $6.5 billion in its IPO, according to an updated regulatory filing on Friday.
The company said it anticipates selling shares at $24 to $26 each. Its valuation in that range would be about $3 billion less than where private investors valued Navan in 2022, when the company announced a $300 million funding round.
CoreWeave, Circle and Figma have led a resurgence in tech IPOs in 2025 after a drought that lasted about three years. Navan filed its original prospectus on Sept. 19, with plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “NAVN.”
Last week, the U.S. government entered a shutdown that has substantially reduced operations inside of agencies including the SEC. In August, the agency said its electronic filing system, EDGAR, “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”
Cerebras, which makes artificial intelligence chips, withdrew its registration for an IPO days after the shutdown began.
Navan CEO Ariel Cohen and technology chief Ilan Twig started the company under the name TripActions in 2015. It’s based in Palo Alto, California, and had around 3,400 employees at the end of July.
For the July quarter, Navan recorded a $38.6 million net loss on $172 million in revenue, which was up about 29% year over year. Competitors include Expensify, Oracle and SAP. Expensify stock closed at $1.64on Friday, down from its $27 IPO price in 2021.
Navan ranked 39th on CNBC’s 2025 Disruptor 50 list, after also appearing in 2024.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, speaking with CNBC’s Jim Cramer during a CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer event at the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 7th, 2025.
Kevin Stankiewicz | CNBC
Shares of Amazon, Nvidia and Tesla each dropped around 5% on Friday, as tech’s megacaps lost $770 billion in market cap, following President Donald Trump’s threats for increased tariffs on Chinese goods.
With tech’s trillion-dollar companies occupying an increasingly large slice of the U.S. market, their declines send the Nasdaq down 3.6% and the S&P 500 down 2.7%. For both indexes, it was the worst day since April, when Trump said he would slap “reciprocal” duties on U.S. trading partners.
After market close on Friday, Trump declared in a social media post that the U.S. would impose a 100% tariff on China and on Nov. 1 it would apply export controls “on any and all critical software.”
Amazon, Nvidia and Tesla all slipped about 2% in extended trading following the post.
The president’s latest threats are disrupting, at least briefly, what had been a sustained rally in tech, built on hundreds of billions of dollars in planned spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
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In late September, Nvidia, which makes graphics processing units for training AI models, became the first company to reach a market cap of $4.5 trillion. Nvidia alone saw its market capitalization decline by nearly $229 billion on Friday.
OpenAI counts on Nvidia’s GPUs from a series of cloud suppliers, including Microsoft. OpenAI is only seeing rising demand.
In September it introduced the Sora 2 video creation app, and this week the company said the ChatGPT assistant now boasts over 800 million weekly users. But Microsoft must buy infrastructure to operate its cloud data centers. Microsoft’s market cap dropped by $85 billion on Friday.
The sell-off wiped out Amazon’s gains for the year. That stock is now down 2% so far in 2025. It competes with Microsoft to rent out GPUs from its cloud data centers, but it doesn’t have major business with OpenAI. The online retailer is now worth $121 billion less than it was on Thursday.
“There continues to be a lot of noise about the impact that tariffs will have on retail prices and consumption,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told analysts in July. “Much of it thus far has been wrong and misreported. As we said before, it’s impossible to know what will happen.”
Tesla, which introduced lower-priced vehicles on Tuesday, saw its market capitalization sink by $71 billion.
The automaker reports third-quarter results on Oct. 22, with Microsoft earnings scheduled for the following week. Nvidia reports in November.
Google parent Alphabet and Facebook owner Meta fell 2% and almost 4%, respectively.
Govini, a defense tech software startup taking on the likes of Palantir, has blown past $100 million in annual recurring revenue, the company announced Friday.
“We’re growing faster than 100% in a three-year CAGR, and I expect that next year we’ll continue to do the same,” CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan in an interview. With how “big this market is, we can keep growing for a long, long time, and that’s really exciting.”
CAGR stands for compound annual growth rate, a measurement of the rate of return.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company also announced a $150 million growth investment from Bain Capital. It plans to use the money to expand its team and product offering to satisfy growing security demands.
In recent years, venture capitalists have poured more money into defense tech startups like Govini to satisfy heightened national security concerns and modernize the military as global conflict ensues.
The group, which includes unicorns like Palmer Luckey’s Anduril, Shield AI and artificial intelligence beneficiary Palantir, is taking on legacy giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, that have long leaned on contracts from the Pentagon.
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Dougherty, who previously worked at Palantir, said she hopes the company can seize a “vertical slice” of the defense technology space.
The 14-year-old Govini has already secured a string of big wins in recent years, including an over $900-million U.S. government contract and deals with the Department of War.
Govini is known for its flagship AI software Ark, which it says can help modernize the military’s defense tech supply chain by better managing product lifecycles as military needs grow more sophisticated.
“If the United States can get this acquisition system right, it can actually be a decisive advantage for us,” Dougherty said.
Looking ahead, Dougherty told CNBC that she anticipates some setbacks from the government shutdown.
Navy customers could be particularly hard hit, and that could put the U.S. at a major disadvantage.
While the U.S. is maintaining its AI dominance, China is outpacing its shipbuilding capacity and that needs to be taken “very seriously,” she added.