Apple’s stock went up by 1.5% in early trading, while Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares rose by 2.6%.
Last year, Apple picked Baidu as its main AI partner. However, Baidu’s progress did not meet Apple’s expectations. After that, Apple considered AI models from Tencent, ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company), Alibaba, and Deepseek. It decided not to work with Deepseek because the startup lacked enough staff and experience to support a big project.
Apple and Alibaba have submitted their AI features for approval by China’s internet regulator. Launching these tools is important because iPhone sales dropped in the holiday season due to a lack of AI features, which were supposed to be the key selling point of the latest devices.
Apple expects strong sales growth in the current quarter and hopes iPhone demand will increase. The decision to partner with Alibaba was partly because of the vast amount of user data Alibaba has from online shopping and payments. This data could help Apple train better AI models and offer more personalized services.
Source: reuters
