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John Sculley Says OpenAI Is Apple’s First Real Rival in Decades

The former Apple chief argues Apple must pivot to agentic AI to regain momentum.

Overview

  • Speaking at the Zeta Live conference in New York, Sculley characterized OpenAI as the most significant challenge Apple has faced in many years.
  • He said artificial intelligence has not been Apple’s strength and pointed to a slower product cadence than OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and Meta.
  • As an example of lagging execution, he cited the delay earlier this year of a planned AI overhaul for Siri.
  • He urged a shift from app‑centric software to agentic assistants that execute tasks on users’ behalf, calling subscriptions a stronger business model and saying Apple’s next leader must drive that change.
  • He underscored OpenAI’s reported purchase of Jony Ive’s device startup for more than $6 billion as a sign of its push to blend hardware design with large AI models.