Apple needs a new CEO to survive the high-stakes AI race, analysts warn

“To be clear, Tim Cook was the right CEO at the time of his appointment and unquestionably has done a great job. Apple has sold over $2.0 trillion of iPhones with Cook as CEO. In fact, iPhone sales could show signs of life this quarter, as tariff-related pull-forwards help stabilize replacement cycles that may finally be bottoming out,” the analysts wrote on Wednesday, July 9, according to a report by Market Watch. 

But they questioned whether Apple can deliver a wave of new AI features and upgrades with Cook still at the helm. “AI will reshape industries across the global economy, and Apple risks becoming one of its casualties,” they said. The note was published a day after Apple announced that its chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, will retire soon. The company has named India-born Sabih Khan as Williams’ successor.

Khan has been with Apple since 1995 and is widely credited with transforming the company’s global supply chain. Since 2019, he has led Apple’s operations team, overseeing manufacturing, supplier responsibility, and environmental sustainability initiatives across the globe. He was the company’s senior vice president of operations before the promotion. As COO, he will now be number two in the big tech company, below Cook.

While the elevation of an executive already working within the company’s leadership ranks signals stability, the LightShed analysts have argued that Apple needs bold changes at the moment.

This is because Apple is widely perceived to be struggling to keep pace in the high-stakes AI race. Apple Intelligence features have run into snafus, and its AI-enabled Siri has been delayed by more than a year as the company reportedly ran into technical challenges.

The Cupertino-based tech giant had teased a smarter personalised assistant at the 2024 WWDC developer conference, with promised features boosting the ability for Siri to understand the context of conversations.

The LightShed team said that calling the Siri delay “simply a case of overpromising and underdelivering” would be overly generous. “Apple was nowhere with AI then, and little has changed since,” they said.

”AI will reshape industries across the global economy, and Apple risks becoming one of its casualties. […] Missing on AI could fundamentally alter the company’s long-term trajectory and ability to grow at all,” the analysts added.

Last week, Ruoming Pang, a renowned engineer who was reportedly overlooking the development of foundational AI models at Apple, left to join Meta’s artificial superintelligence unit. At the start of 2025, Kevan Parekh assumed the office of chief financial officer, succeeding Luca Maestri.