The news: Apple could soon renew its smart home and robotics plans with a slew of products.
- The hardware giant is planning an AI-enabled tabletop robot, per Bloomberg, a smart home camera, and a smart speaker with a display.
- This could all be accompanied by a major Siri upgrade built on large language models (LLMs).
AI game: This slate of products could signal a hardware-first strategy to gain AI leadership. While competitors like OpenAI and Google lead with software—which is not Apple’s strongest area—it may be playing the long game by putting AI into tangible consumer experiences.
Apple could deepen reliance on its product ecosystem by expanding into the home.
- Smart home integrations could let Apple bill Siri as a daily-use AI companion, not just a voice assistant.
- A tabletop robot could define a new product category, representing an iPhone-like inflection point.
Subscription growth: We’ve previously suggested that Big Tech companies focus more on service and subscription revenues amid an expected decline in digital ad spending growth.
Apple’s first-party home operating systems could compete with fragmented smart home platforms like Google’s and help Apple capture more recurring revenues. This might include subscription-based storage for home security products.
Apple could also receive referral commissions for purchases made through its tabletop robot, similar to how Amazon monetizes Alexa.
Moonshot? A table robot could be Apple’s most extreme hardware release since the Vision Pro. It may include face and voice recognition, a context-aware presence, and deep integrations with an improved Siri, per Bloomberg.
Still, it risks becoming a high-end novelty product like the Vision Pro.
- If hardware is still too expensive, users may stick with lower-cost alternatives like Amazon’s Echo.
- Consumers may not see a need for a dedicated robot when smartphones and other smart speakers offer on-device AI.
Potential failure: These plans could be delayed, scrapped, or scaled back considering Apple killing prior big bets, like its now-dead Project Titan EV.
Privacy is another concern: Facial recognition, smart cameras, and home robots are all minefields. However, half (49%) of US adults trust Apple with personal data, per All About Cookies, which could set Apple up for success.
Our take: This could be Apple’s biggest ecosystem play since the iPhone. If successful, it could drive growth in a post-iPhone era, reestablish Apple in the AI game, and usher in a new era of home-based intelligence.
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