Did Apple Miss the AI Moment - or Is Its Timing Just Right?

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🔥 This Week’s Poll Results

Is it too late for Apple to get AI right?

While OpenAI is already integrating apps directly into the ChatGPT interface and redefining how users interact with AI, Apple's recent moves suggests the company is finally taking the tech seriously. The company’s strength still lies in its vast ecosystem and ability to blend hardware, software, and privacy into one experience. But with competitors constantly breaking new ground, has Apple missed its window — or is its timing just right?

ChatGPT is already behaving like an operating system. Google and Microsoft are shipping AI updates to billions. And Apple? It only began rolling out Apple Intelligence in late 2024 — mostly on-device, privacy-first, and honestly a little quiet compared to the fireworks everywhere else.

So… did Apple blow it?

Maybe. The hype cycle peaked two years ago, and every competitor has been sprinting ever since.

Or maybe not. Apple almost never wins by being first. It wins by being the best after the market has trained itself. If the next era of AI is about trust, privacy, and seamless daily use, the company with 2 billion devices and a privacy-obsessed brand may be right on schedule.

Before we guess, let’s look at what real money thinks.

What Prediction Market Has to Say

On Kalshi, the market “Will Apple Intelligence require a paid subscription this year?” is sitting at a 2% chance of ‘yes.’

Traders are overwhelmingly betting that Apple will keep its AI suite free, which aligns with Apple’s long-standing strategy of bundling premium features into iOS to deepen lock-in. Siri, Face ID, Touch ID, iMessage encryption… Apple sells hardware, not AI tokens. A paywall here would alienate the very people Apple wants to wow.

So far, Cupertino has given zero signals of monetization, and the beta rollout is already happening on-device. The market is simply reflecting the obvious: Apple likes ecosystem gravity more than subscription revenue.

On Polymarket, the question “Will Apple acquire Perplexity in 2025?” is trading at just 4%.

Investors love the fantasy: Perplexity’s AI search is fast, smart, and could hand Siri a much-needed brain transplant. Apple certainly has the cash.

But prediction markets are rarely sentimental. Apple hasn’t done a splashy consumer acquisition since Beats in 2014, Perplexity is already valued at $9 billion, and big AI M&A runs counter to Apple’s quiet, in-house R&D culture.

A 4% vote is basically the market saying: cool pitch, unlikely reality.

So… Did Apple Miss the AI Moment or Not?

Apple absolutely missed the first wave: the wild, demo-driven, VC-fueled AI gold rush of 2023–2024.

It sat out the hype.

But the second wave, the one defined by trust, privacy, and “AI that just works” inside an ecosystem people already love, is where Apple historically shines.

The iPhone arrived years after smartphones existed and still rewrote the category. AirPods looked late and became the default. The Apple Watch lagged and now dominates its market. Apple’s best products tend to feel late… right up until they feel inevitable.

So maybe the real answer is: both. Apple missed the moment the industry wanted, and might nail the moment consumers actually care about.



We’ll be back next week with more data, more debates, and more donut charts 🍩.