Apple's new CEO pick shows it's sticking to its guns in the AI wars

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The new Apple CEO doesn't fall far from the tree.

(Sorry, I had to. Low-hanging fruit and all.)

Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple's CEO this September, making way for longtime executive John Ternus. Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering has spent 25 years at the company. More on Ternus here.

We'll get to Ternus in a minute, but first, let's look back at Cook's incredible run. Read his farewell letter here.

Apple's CEO since 2011, Cook had the impossible task of filling Steve Jobs' shoes. He not only stepped up to the challenge but, in many ways, outright surpassed it.

Still, not everyone was convinced early on. In 2013, Alistair Barr, author of Business Insider's Tech Memo newsletter, rated Tim Cook a "loser." He has since acknowledged he was mistaken, now calling Cook "the ultimate non-founder success story."

AirPods? Apple Watch? Growing Apple's presence in China? A services business that mints money? All under Cook's leadership. Sure, there was the Apple Vision Pro and that car idea, but nobody's perfect.

Most importantly (for investors, at least), Apple's stock is up almost 2,000% in Cook's tenure, far outstripping the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq 100.

As the kids would say, Tim cooked.

Smart people across business and tech — from Sam Altman to Robert Reich — have been responding to the news. Here's what they're saying.

Apple tapping Ternus is a nod toward its unique strategy in Big Tech's AI wars.

While the rest of Big Tech is racing to outspend each other on AI, Apple has mostly stayed on the sidelines.

The iPhone still commands a massive audience. As long as that's the case, the rest of Big Tech will need to work with Apple to get its fancy AI to people. (At least, that's the hope.)

The verdict is still out on whether Apple sitting out the AI wars is genius or a disaster. The Ternus pick shows it's not wavering from that strategy, though. If Apple believes hardware is its edge in the AI era, why not anoint the person who knows it best?

That could ease some of the early pressure on Ternus, putting him in a position similar to when Cook first took over. As BI's Peter Kafka points out, Cook didn't need to come up with a new product as monumental as the iPhone to be considered incredibly successful.

But, as Peter highlights, Cook also benefited from the fact that no one else built something that truly threatened the iPhone.

The trick this time around is that there's chatter about AI wearables being the next big thing. It's more bust than boom so far, but we're still in the early innings.

And if Apple ultimately finds itself getting caught flat-footed in the AI wars, the end of Cook's tenure, and his succession pick, might be viewed very differently.