Formula One F1 – United States Grand Prix – Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, U.S. – October 23, 2022 Tim Cook waves the chequered flag to the race winner Red Bull’s Max Verstappen
Mike Segar | Reuters
Apple had two major launches last month. They couldn’t have been more different.
First, Apple revealed some of the artificial intelligence advancements it had been working on in the past year when it released developer versions of its operating systems to muted applause at its annual developer’s conference, WWDC. Then, at the end of the month, Apple hit the red carpet as its first true blockbuster movie, “F1,” debuted to over $155 million — and glowing reviews — in its first weekend.
While “F1” was a victory lap for Apple, highlighting the strength of its long-term outlook, the growth of its services business and its ability to tap into culture, Wall Street’s reaction to the company’s AI announcements at WWDC suggest there’s some trouble underneath the hood.
“F1” showed Apple at its best — in particular, its ability to invest in new, long-term projects. When Apple TV+ launched in 2019, it had only a handful of original shows and one movie, a film festival darling called “Hala” that didn’t even share its box office revenue.
Despite Apple TV+being written off as a costly side-project, Apple stuck with its plan over the years, expanding its staff and operation in Culver City, California. That allowed the company to build up Hollywood connections, especially for TV shows, and build an entertainment track record. Now, an Apple Original can lead the box office on a summer weekend, the prime season for blockbuster films.
The success of “F1” also highlights Apple’s significant marketing machine and ability to get big-name talent to appear with its leadership. Apple pulled out all the stops to market the movie, including using its Wallet app to send a push notification with a discount for tickets to the film. To promote “F1,” Cook appeared with movie star Brad Pitt at an Apple store in New York and posted a video with actual F1 racer Lewis Hamilton, who was one of the film’s producers.
(L-R) Brad Pitt, Lewis Hamilton, Tim Cook, and Damson Idris attend the World Premiere of “F1: The Movie” in Times Square on June 16, 2025 in New York City.
Jamie Mccarthy | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Although Apple services chief Eddy Cue said in a recent interview that Apple needs the its film business to be profitable to “continue to do great things,” “F1” isn’t just about the bottom line for the company.
Apple’s Hollywood productions are perhaps the most prominent face of the company’s services business, a profit engine that has been an investor favorite since the iPhone maker started highlighting the division in 2016.
Films will only ever be a small fraction of the services unit, which also includes payments, iCloud subscriptions, magazine bundles, Apple Music, game bundles, warranties, fees related to digital payments and ad sales. Plus, even the biggest box office smashes would be small on Apple’s scale — the company does over $1 billion in sales on average every day.
But movies are the only services component that can get celebrities like Pitt or George Clooney to appear next to an Apple logo — and the success of “F1” means that Apple could do more big popcorn films in the future.
“Nothing breeds success or inspires future investment like a current success,” said Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
But if “F1” is a sign that Apple’s services business is in full throttle, the company’s AI struggles are a “check engine” light that won’t turn off.
Replacing Siri’s engine
At WWDC last month, Wall Street was eager to hear about the company’s plans for Apple Intelligence, its suite of AI features that it first revealed in 2024. Apple Intelligence, which is a key tenet of the company’s hardware products, had a rollout marred by delays and underwhelming features.
Apple spent most of WWDC going over smaller machine learning features, but did not reveal what investors and consumers increasingly want: A sophisticated Siri that can converse fluidly and get stuff done, like making a restaurant reservation. In the age of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, the expectation of AI assistants among consumers is growing beyond “Siri, how’s the weather?”
The company had previewed a significantly improved Siri in the summer of 2024, but earlier this year, those features were delayed to sometime in 2026. At WWDC, Apple didn’t offer any updates about the improved Siri beyond that the company was “continuing its work to deliver” the features in the “coming year.” Some observers reduced their expectations for Apple’s AI after the conference.
“Current expectations for Apple Intelligence to kickstart a super upgrade cycle are too high, in our view,” wrote Jefferies analysts this week.
Siri should be an example of how Apple’s ability to improve products and projects over the long-term makes it tough to compete with.
It beat nearly every other voice assistant to market when it first debuted on iPhones in 2011. Fourteen years later, Siri remains essentially the same one-off, rigid, question-and-answer system that struggles with open-ended questions and dates, even after the invention in recent years of sophisticated voice bots based on generative AI technology that can hold a conversation.
Apple’s strongest rivals, including Android parent Google, have done way more to integrate sophisticated AI assistants into their devices than Apple has. And Google doesn’t have the same reflex against collecting data and cloud processing as privacy-obsessed Apple.
Some analysts have said they believe Apple has a few years before the company’s lack of competitive AI features will start to show up in device sales, given the company’s large installed base and high customer loyalty. But Apple can’t get lapped before it re-enters the race, and its former design guru Jony Ive is now working on new hardware with OpenAI, ramping up the pressure in Cupertino.
“The three-year problem, which is within an investment time frame, is that Android is racing ahead,” Needham senior internet analyst Laura Martin said on CNBC this week.
Apple’s services success with projects like “F1” is an example of what the company can do when it sets clear goals in public and then executes them over extended time-frames.
Its AI strategy could use a similar long-term plan, as customers and investors wonder when Apple will fully embrace the technology that has captivated Silicon Valley.
Wall Street’s anxiety over Apple’s AI struggles was evident this week after Bloomberg reported that Apple was considering replacing Siri’s engine with Anthropic or OpenAI’s technology, as opposed to its own foundation models.
The move, if it were to happen, would contradict one of Apple’s most important strategies in the Cook era: Apple wants to own its core technologies, like the touchscreen, processor, modem and maps software, not buy them from suppliers.
Using external technology would be an admission that Apple Foundation Models aren’t good enough yet for what the company wants to do with Siri.
“They’ve fallen farther and farther behind, and they need to supercharge their generative AI efforts” Martin said. “They can’t do that internally.”
Apple might even pay billions for the use of Anthropic’s AI software, according to the Bloombergreport. If Apple were to pay for AI, it would be a reversal from current services deals, like the search deal with Alphabet where the Cupertino company gets paid $20 billion per year to push iPhone traffic to Google Search.
The company didn’t confirm the report and declined comment, but Wall Street welcomed the report and Apple shares rose.
In the world of AI in Silicon Valley, signing bonuses for the kinds of engineers that can develop new models can range up to $100 million, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“I can’t see Apple doing that,” Martin said.
Earlier this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent a memo bragging about hiring 11 AI experts from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google’s DeepMind. That came after Zuckerberg hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead a new AI division as part of a $14.3 billion deal.
Meta’s not the only company to spend hundreds of millions on AI celebrities to get them in the building. Google spent big to hire away the founders of Character.AI, Microsoft got its AI leader by striking a deal with Inflection and Amazon hired the executive team of Adept to bulk up its AI roster.
Apple, on the other hand, hasn’t announced any big AI hires in recent years. While Cook rubs shoulders with Pitt, the actual race may be passing Apple by.
WHO Director-General’s remarks at the XVII BRICS Leaders’ Summit, session on Strengthening Multilateralism, Economic-Financial Affairs, and Artificial Intelligence – 6 July 2025
Excellencies, Heads of State, Heads of Government,
Heads of delegation,
Dear colleagues and friends,
Thank you, President Lula, and Brazil’s BRICS Presidency for your commitment to equity, solidarity, and multilateralism.
My intervention will focus on three key issues: challenges to multilateralism, cuts to Official Development Assistance, and the role of AI and other digital tools.
First, we are facing significant challenges to multilateralism.
However, there was good news at the World Health Assembly in May.
WHO’s Member States demonstrated their commitment to international solidarity through the adoption of the Pandemic Agreement. South Africa co-chaired the negotiations, and I would like to thank South Africa.
It is time to finalize the next steps.
We ask the BRICS to complete the annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing so that the Agreement is ready for ratification at next year’s World Health Assembly. Brazil is co-chairing the committee, and I thank Brazil for their leadership.
Second, are cuts to Official Development Assistance.
Compounding the chronic domestic underinvestment and aid dependency in developing countries, drastic cuts to foreign aid have disrupted health services, costing lives and pushing millions into poverty.
The recent Financing for Development conference in Sevilla made progress in key areas, particularly in addressing the debt trap that prevents vital investments in health and education.
Going forward, it is critical for countries to mobilize domestic resources and foster self-reliance to support primary healthcare as the foundation of universal health coverage.
Because health is not a cost to contain, it’s an investment in people and prosperity.
Third, is AI and other digital tools.
Planning for the future of health requires us to embrace a digital future, including the use of artificial intelligence. The future of health is digital.
AI has the potential to predict disease outbreaks, improve diagnosis, expand access, and enable local production.
AI can serve as a powerful tool for equity.
However, it is crucial to ensure that AI is used safely, ethically, and equitably.
We encourage governments, especially BRICS, to invest in AI and digital health, including governance and national digital public infrastructure, to modernize health systems while addressing ethical, safety, and equity issues.
WHO will be by your side every step of the way, providing guidance, norms, and standards.
Excellencies, only by working together through multilateralism can we build a healthier, safer, and fairer world for all.
Australian scientists have successfully developed a research system that uses ‘biological artificial intelligence’ to design and evolve molecules with new or improved functions directly in mammal cells. The researchers said this system provides a powerful new tool that will help scientists develop more specific and effective research tools or gene therapies. Named PROTEUS (PROTein Evolution Using Selection) the system harnesses ‘directed evolution’, a lab technique that mimics the natural power of evolution. However, rather than taking years or decades, this method accelerates cycles of evolution and natural selection, allowing them to create molecules with new functions in weeks. This could have a direct impact on finding new, more effective medicines. For example, this system can be applied to improve gene editing technology like CRISPR to improve its effectiveness.
Funder: Declaration: Alexandar Cole, Christopher Denes, Daniel Hesselson and Greg Neely have filed a provisional patent application on this technology The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
Media release
From: The University of Sydney
Australian scientists have successfully developed a research system that uses ‘biological artificial intelligence’ to design and evolve molecules with new or improved functions directly in mammal cells. The researchers said this system provides a powerful new tool that will help scientists develop more specific and effective research tools or gene therapies.
Named PROTEUS (PROTein Evolution Using Selection) the system harnesses ‘directed evolution’, a lab technique that mimics the natural power of evolution. However, rather than taking years or decades, this method accelerates cycles of evolution and natural selection, allowing them to create molecules with new functions in weeks.
This could have a direct impact on finding new, more effective medicines. For example, this system can be applied to improve gene editing technology like CRISPR to improve its effectiveness.
“This means PROTEUS can be used to generate new molecules that are highly tuned to function in our bodies, and we can use it to make new medicine that would be otherwise difficult or impossible to make with current technologies.” says co-senior author Professor Greg Neely, Head of the Dr. John and Anne Chong Lab for Functional Genomics at the University of Sydney.
“What is new about our work is that directed evolution primarily work in bacterial cells, whereas PROTEUS can evolve molecules in mammal cells.”
PROTEUS can be given a problem with uncertain solution like when a user feeds in prompts for an artificial intelligence platform. For example the problem can be how to efficiently turn off a human disease gene inside our body.
PROTEUS then uses directed evolution to explore millions of possible sequences that have yet to exist naturally and finds molecules with properties that are highly adapted to solve the problem. This means PROTEUS can help find a solution that would normally take a human researcher years to solve if at all.
The researchers reported they used PROTEUS to develop improved versions of proteins that can be more easily regulated by drugs, and nanobodies (mini versions of antibodies) that can detect DNA damage, an important process that drives cancer. However, they said PROTEUS isn’t limited to this and can be used to enhance the function of most proteins and molecules.
The findings were reported in Nature Communications, with the research performed at the Charles Perkins Centre, the University of Sydney with collaborators from the Centenary Institute.
Unlocking molecular machine learning
The original development of directed evolution, performed first in bacteria, was recognised by the 2018 Noble Prize in Chemistry.
“The invention of directed evolution changed the trajectory of biochemistry. Now, with PROTEUS, we can program a mammalian cell with a genetic problem we aren’t sure how to solve. Letting our system run continuously means we can check in regularly to understand just how the system is solving our genetic challenge,” said lead researcher Dr Christopher Denes from the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences
The biggest challenge Dr Denes and the team faced was how to make sure the mammalian cell could withstand the multiple cycles of evolution and mutations and remain stable, without the system “cheating” and coming up with a trivial solution that doesn’t answer the intended question.
They found the key was using chimeric virus-like particles, a design consisting of taking the outside shell of one virus and combining it with the genes of another virus, which blocked the system from cheating.
The design used parts of two significantly different virus families creating the best of both worlds. The resulting system allowed the cells to process many different possible solutions in parallel, with improved solutions winning and becoming more dominant while incorrect solutions instead disappear.
“PROTEUS is stable, robust and has been validated by independent labs. We welcome other labs to adopt this technique. By applying PROTEUS, we hope to empower the development of a new generation of enzymes, molecular tools and therapeutics,” Dr Denes said.
“We made this system open source for the research community, and we are excited to see what people use it for, our goals will be to enhance gene-editing technologies, or to fine tune mRNA medicines for more potent and specific effects,” Professor Neely said.
An Xbox executive suggested that laid-off employees use AI for emotional support and career guidance
The suggestion sparked backlash and led the executive to delete their LinkedIn post
Microsoft has laid off 9,000 employees in recent months while investing heavily in AI.
Microsoft has been hyping up its AI ambitions for the last several years, but one executive’s pitch about the power of AI to former employees who were recently let go has landed with an awkward thud.
Amid the largest round of layoffs in over two years, about 9,000 people, Matt Turnbull, Executive Producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing, suggested that AI chatbots could help those affected process their grief, craft resumes, and rebuild their confidence.
The gesture was meant for support, but it left many game developers feeling outraged.
Turnbull took his possibly well-meaning but definitely poorly phrased and timed message to LinkedIn. He shared ideas for prompts to give an AI chatbot that he claimed might help laid-off colleagues navigate career uncertainty and emotional turbulence.
The backlash was swift and angry, leading him to delete the post, but you can still read it thanks to Brandon Sheffield’s Bluesky post below.
Matt Turnbull, Executive Producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing – after the Microsoft layoffs – suggesting on Linkedin that may maybe people who have been let go should turn to AI for help. He seriously thought posting this would be a good idea.
Turnbull urged colleagues to lean on AI to reduce the “emotional and cognitive load” of job loss in his post, along with the prompt ideas for 30-day recovery plans and LinkedIn messages. Probably the most eyebrow-raising suggestion was suggesting a prompt to help reframe impostor syndrome after being laid off.
“No AI tool is a replacement for your voice or lived experience,” Turnbull wrote. “But in times when mental energy is scarce, these tools can help you get unstuck faster, calmer, and with more clarity.”
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Even the most charitable interpretation of his post can’t overlook just how condescending and poorly timed the advice is. And angry game developers flooded the comments, likely leading to the deletion of the post.
To put it mildly, they don’t agree that being laid off is an emotional puzzle best solved with an algorithm. Instead, perhaps a human might understand the career and life upheaval it represents, and how that requires human compassion, support networks, and tangible help, like, say, an introduction to someone who can help you get a new job.
AI therapy
This incident is even worse in the context of Microsoft spending billions building AI infrastructure while dramatically shrinking its gaming teams. Urging laid-off developers to lean on AI right after losing their jobs is more than hypocritical; it’s telling people to use the very technology that may have caused their job loss.
To be scrupulously and overly fair to Turnbull, using AI could help with some mental health concerns and might be useful in improving a resume or preparing for a job interview. Making AI part of outplacement services isn’t a horrible idea. It could boost the internal coaching and career-transition arm Microsoft offers already, adding to the recruiters, résumé workshops, and counselling it offers. But it can’t and shouldn’t replace those human services. And having one of the people who let you go tell you to use AI to find a new job is the opposite of supportive. It’s just an insult on top of injury.
Microsoft’s dual approach of laying people off and doubling down on AI infrastructure is a test of its company culture as much as its technical ability. Will we see a new standard where layoffs come with AI prompt packages instead of counseling and severance? If the message is, “Feel free to use chatbots to help you after we fire you,” expect plenty more outrageous, tone-deaf nonsense from executives.
Perhaps they should ask those chatbots how to interact with human beings without angering them, since it’s a lesson they haven’t learned well.
