- Analysts and tech leaders say Apple has a strong strategic position in the AI sector as DeepSeek disrupts the tech industry.
Apple is well-positioned with its AI strategy as DeepSeek rocks the tech world, analysts and tech leaders told Fortune.
The company, which reports after the bell on Thursday, could stand to benefit from the potential for cheaper AI models DeepSeek offers. Apple's stock was largely unaffected this week after the Chinese startup spooked tech investors and sent some tech stocks plummeting.
“There has been much talk about the impact of DeepSeek’s model on big technology firms. Contrary to Google, Meta, or Microsoft, Apple primarily has a consumer play, and its short-term profitability is not tied quite so closely to generative AI," Forrester’s VP principal analyst Thomas Husson told Fortune.
"If anything, DeepSeek’s smaller model is more of a validation of Apple Intelligence since it will rely more heavily on a local on-device AI approach increasingly based on edge technology," he said.
Apple has focused on integrating AI models into its hardware rather than investing in building its own. However, the company's lack of investment in AI infrastructure, especially in comparison to competitors like Meta and Google, has left the company battling a narrative that it is lagging behind in the AI race.
Husson said that while there was a perception that Apple was late in the AI game versus some of the big platforms, critics ignored the fact that "Apple's business is primarily consumer-centric."
Box CEO Aaron Levie told Fortune that DeepSeek could be "fantastic" for Apple's AI strategy.
"Apple wasn't in the business of training their own models," he said. "So Apple wants as many breakthroughs to happen in the open-source space as possible because they can just run those on their phones and then deliver...intelligence to all their users without them having to have the kind of capital expenditures of the other companies."
Analysts say they are largely optimistic about Apple's prospects in the AI sector, but undecided on the exact impact Apple Intelligence will have on hardware sales.
William Kerwin, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said Apple was in a "good position to productize AI essentially by putting it on a device and into apps."
"We think it's a natural fit with them," he said. "We are a little bit less bullish on the impact it'll have on their actual hardware sales."
He said Apple's strong performance in comparison to a lot of hardware names in the wake of DeepSeek is "just a reflection that longer term, if there is this trend to smaller, more efficient models that require less hardware to get a similar performance — that goes well with Apple's strategy, because they're very much focused on smaller models that can go on device, run at the edge and be efficient."
Apple is still facing problems in China, however, which analysts say could affect overall smartphone sales.
"China is now a significant headwind to iPhone revenue growth, and it used to be a pretty significant tailwind," Kerwin said. "It was an emerging growth market. Now there are more ramped-up competitive options from Huawei or Xiaomi...We still think they'll be able to grow in China, but it's no longer that high-growth outlet."
