John Ternus tells WIRED Apple won’t ship AI for AI’s sake

What happened

John Ternus tells WIRED Apple won’t ship AI for AI’s sake, according to The Next Web. Apple wants people to love its products without having to think about whether AI made them work, chief executive John Ternus told Steven Levy for WIRED. The interview was published on Friday 30 October. Apple is a software and consumer electronics company based in Cupertino.

Levy spoke to Ternus at Apple’s Los Angeles launch of the touchscreen MacBook Pro this week. Apple’s new chief executive would not say whether he backs AI regulation, citing security instead.

Ternus, 51, has spent 25 years at Apple and has been chief executive for less than two months.

He said he hoped people would see that Apple’s work is building products that make their lives better. Apple is “absolutely going to” use AI to do that, he said.

Agents, regulation and security Levy asked about AI agents (AI that carries out multi-step tasks rather than answering one question) that could replace today’s ways of using a computer. He did not say whether he favours AI regulation. He said he reads the stories and thinks about them “from a cybersecurity standpoint”.