The evidence for Apple’s apparent failure is easy to assemble. Siri remains a punchline. The promised AI-powered assistant has been delayed until 2026. Analysts have called the company’s AI strategy a “disaster” and warned it is one to two years behind competitors. Meanwhile, Apple sits on more than $130 billion in cash, watching others burn through capital at unprecedented rates.
But consider an alternative reading. The foundation model market is beginning to exhibit classic signs of commoditisation. When one company introduces agentic capabilities, the others follow within months. Benchmark leadership changes constantly, with no provider establishing a durable lead. Prices are collapsing: Anthropic recently cut prices by 67%, Google has slashed rates by 70%-80%, and OpenAI has repeatedly reduced costs on successive models. This is textbook commodity market behaviour.
If foundation models are heading toward commodity status, then the strategic value shifts to whoever controls the integration layer and the user relationship. Apple has 2.4 billion active devices. It has the most valuable distribution channel in technology. And its recent moves suggest a deliberate strategy: rather than building frontier models, source them from whoever is best at any given moment.
